


Growing up among Goldfish

by cloudwatcher13



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adultery, Angst, Bankruptcy, Beach Holidays, Blood and Violence, Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Diogenes Club, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Father Figures, Father-Son Relationship, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kid Mycroft, Kid Sherlock, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Mycroft-centric, Not Happy, Parental Mrs. Hudson, Pining Anthea, Pining Mycroft, Pre-Canon, Protective Mycroft, Sherlock-centric, Sibling Rivalry, Suicidal Thoughts, Unilock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:11:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 70
Words: 102,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2163675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudwatcher13/pseuds/cloudwatcher13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I will try to take this backstory of the two brothers growing up all the way to the beginning of season one. Triggers and tags will be added as I go along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Summer Holidays

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> A Young!Sherlock fic. Might even be a kid fic, though a more 'serious' story is preferred - something from Sherlock's past when he still lived at home with Mummy and Mycroft, maybe even his father. Pretty much any kind of backstory.

The door of the study was heavy and he painfully remembered the one time he hadn't pulled out his fingers quickly enough before it fell back into place. At least he had been excused from piano lessons for a week. The yelling was blocked out as soon as the door fell into its lock. He breathed in the silence and wandered towards the table where he had left his edition of Cicero. He tried to remember at which verse he had been interrupted when he noticed his place was taken already. Small sticky hands on the clean pages of his book, a head of black curls just reaching over the rim of the desk.

"Sherlock, get lost, I told you to leave my stuff alone." The pale blue eyes kept their fix at him. 

"Why are they fighting?" He studied the face of the three year old, trying to work out if there was any point in lying to him. He would settle for a half truth.

"Dad's got to go away on business again and mum doesn't like it."

"Where?"

"What do I care?" He sighed. Looking at pictures usually did the trick, he desperatly wanted to get back to his translation. He gave the shelves a quick glance for books that would keep his brother interested for at least some time.

"Do you want to look at the book on pirates and marine warfare again?" The small face lightened up and he slid out of the heavy leather chair. The arms streched out to him and he picked the smaller boy up to lift him so he could grab the book himself from the shelf. 

"It's the other one, read the title!" His voice sounded pressed, Sherlock was getting heavier by the day.

"What's Anatolmy?"

"Concentrate and read again." He held the back of the book out to him so the tiny fingers could rund over the letters while connecting them into a word. After all it had taken him an entire afternoon to teach the baby how to read.

"Anatomy of the Human Body. Are there pictures in it?" He opened a random page and set the book down on the floor for Sherlock to browse.

"It shows what you look like on the inside." He was relieved to find him fascinated by the colorfoul charts. Three hundred pages, that garanteed him two hours of peace if he was lucky.

 

"Myc, I'm hungry." He looked up and needed a moment to reconnect himself to his surroundings. A second ago he had been standing on the agora disputing over the right way of governing the Roman Empire. It had grown dark outside and the fire in fireplace had already reduced to a glimmer. He took his brother's hand. Sticky and dirty and sweaty. He wondered how he managed to get that dirty all the time.

"Does everybody look like that on the inside?"

"Yes." He checked the clock in the hall. Nine o'clock. They had forgotten about dinner again. There was his mother's voice from up the stairs again. He hurried Sherlock towards the kitchen when he realized she was crying and quickly closed the door behind them.

"Where's mummey?"

"I guess she went to bed, she gets all tired you know. What do you want?"

Both of them peeked into the fridge, the only source of light in the enormous kitchen. The housekeeper had left several containers with leftovers and Mycroft took some of them out for Sherlock to look inside. He could hear his father's steps over them, then coming down the stairs. The kitchen door was opened a fragment.

"Mycroft?" The voice was hoarse and tense.

"Here, dad." He door opened further but his father kept his face in the shadow. 

"I need to run down to the office tonight, I won't be back before some days. Be good to your mother." Mycroft nodded. He knew there was no point in requesting a date of return. 

"Sherlock, behave, will you?" The curls next to him turned towards his father.

"When you come back?"

"I don't know yet, son. Probably before you notice I'm gone."

"Don't go." The request was weak and lost as the kitchen door closed again.

"Don't cry, idiot. Won't bring him back." The pale eyes gave is austere face a questioning look before resigning into obedience. 

"Curry or lasagne?"

"Which curry?"

"Potatoes and chickpeas."

"Lasagne." He opened the microwave and placed the container in it. They waited and listened to the humming of the machine.

"Ping!" Sherlock imitated and and giggled.

 

"Tell me a story." 

"Don't play with your food." He caught his brother's hand to stop him from pushing parts of his meal onto the table. "What story do you want?"

"Tell me from where you go after your vacation." The small tongue struggled with the words, it was high time to get the boy into bed.

"It's a big building with lots of boys living together. You go to lessons every day and then you do your homework but in the afternoons you have to do extracurricular stuff."

"Do you like it?" He shrugged. It meant that he got away from the fighting and the oppressing silence, didn't have to worry about mum's crouched figure on the bed, not moving again for hours. Melancholy dad called it. He sensed it was a nice word for something very threatening and dark. He slid into a monologue about Cicero and watched his brother's eyes grow heavier by the minute over the half empty plate.

"Come on, time for bed." He picked the almost boneless body up, the arms instantly connecting behind his neck, the short legs clinging around his hips. He smelled of something sweet and bechamel sauce.

"Where's mummey?"

"Sleeping, I told you." He groaned under the weight as he climbed the stairs. Stopping in front of his brother's door, he hesitated. The breathing had turned regular and deep on his shoulder. 

It was difficult to lower the boy onto the pillow without waking Sherlock. His head bumped at the shelf over the bed and he hissed a curse under his breath.

"Not, alone, your bed." The eyes wouldn't even open but the small fingers caught his sleeve.

"You're old enough. Go to sleep."

He hadn't yet turned to the right page in his book on British history when his door opened again.

"Mum's crying. I can hear." The small eyes blinked adjusting to the light in his room. He rubbed them with his arm. Mycroft moved towards the wall and drew back the duvet. The small feet pressed against his calf and left a cold spot on it.

"Why?" 

"Just reading a sad book, I guess." The chubby cheek rested on his stomach, one arm dangling over it as well.

"You lie." It wasn't an accusation or a question. Just a simple statement of the truth.

"Sleep, idiot."


	2. Brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the mistakes are mine, all the characters are not. Comments are very welcome and highly cherished :)

"Mrs Holmes, thank you for taking the time to come by." The teacher offered her one of the tiny chairs in the classroom. She gave the bleeding boy in the hallway another wary look through the window next to the door. The nurse had patched up his forehead alright, but the nose kept spilling blood onto the shirt of the uniform.

"Mrs. Holmes, we're quite at a loss on how to further handle Sherlock. This is the third incident this month." She turned her eyes to the floor, inspecting the tip of her shoes. 

"Did he start it?" The teacher sighed, inspecting his hands.

"No, not the hitting but he just fails to integrate into the class, which makes it hard for the others to...react. I'm not trying to justify their behaviour in any way but..."

"What was it this time?"

"He yelled at his neighbour for asking about how to write the letter W again. He told him to shut up because he wanted to get on with the lesson."

"And you watched that boy then turn around in the break and beat him up?"

"There are a dozen kids in this class, all asking for attention. Wherever he turns up trouble isn't far away. Maybe if you could convince him to involve in more social interaction with the others, he wouldn't be such a popular target..." She huffed and gave him a sarcastic look, which he stared back.

"Does he talk more at home?"

"Not since his brother left for school again. He has a hard time adjusting." He nodded.

"I showed some of your son's work to my colleagues. His pictures do add to our concern about him." He produced a folder from his desk. A quite detailed drawing of the most important bones in the human body, some of them even labelled in Latin with horrible spelling. A bird in a tree, a robin with remarkable details again. A black body on a bed, back turned towards the beholder. She recognized herself and closed her eyes fo a second.

"Mrs Holmes, I'm sure you noticed the impressive details on these pictures. He really seems to have an eye for drawing and we both know his academic development to be above anything to be expected, but his social...I...we think your son might have Asperger's syndrome." She couldn't help but smile when he gave her a worried look, harnessing himself against any protest or anger and desperation she was expected to utter, which she wouldn't. She had done this before with Mycroft, she knew the procedure.

"Mr..." She couldn't be bothered to remember the name. "I have another son as you know. He had similar problems when he started here, you might want to talk to his former teachers about it. It took him a term and everything sorted itself out. I don't see any reason to treat this any different. And certainly I will not have my boy send to any special school as you will offer in a minute. It only is another term before he will be old enough for prep school anyway."

She carefully picked up the bundle of what was left of her son. In her pocket she found a tissue and made him press it against that bleeding nose.

"Time to get home. Think you could manage to talk to me on the way?" She was met with the same silence that had been there for weeks.

"Stubborn, that's what you are, child." she ruffled his curls as she carried him towards the car.

"It's not my fault he has to leave for school, that's what boys do. You will go there soon too, if you should decide to talk to anyone again." Muffled sniffling was all she was granted as an answer.


	3. The Letter

"He said we're friends."

"Well, that's what you get from friends." That last word was sneered as if it had a filthy taste to it. Mycroft pulled him towards the backdoor of their grandmother's house. Sherlock had a hard time walking, everything seemed to be spinning and he felt sick. He bent over a bush lining the gravelled garden path and threw up. In the dark all he could do was hoping he had not aimed onto one of her beloved little statues lining the path up to the house.

"Oh, you idiot, how much did you have?" Sherlock shrugged, he felt miserable. It probably wasn't a good idea to confess they had challenged him to finish the entire bottle if he wanted to come along to the beach tomorrow. And he wanted to, badly.

"They wouldn't have taken you anyway, don't you get it? They play the same tricks on you again and again and you just don't get any smarter from it. Seriously, sometimes I doubt your intelligence. Now tell me how much you had so I know for how long I need to hide you from granny."

"Half a bottle, but I threw up most of it. Tastes disgusting."

"You will go to your room and stay there until I tell you it's alright to get out."

"You can't ground me, you're not dad!"

"Oh, yeah? Would you like me to call him?"

"You know his number?" His heart gave a hopeful pounding.

"Do as I tell you, I have no intention of getting in trouble for your mess again."

He stumbled twice as he got up the stairs. The bed was covered in laundry and books but he simply threw himself on top of it. He had been surprised when the boy next door had offered to take him along to meet his friends at the bus station. Surprised didn't even begin to cover the feeling, he had been thrilled. Time till dawn had stretched unbearably long but finally Brian had turned up at the gate, giving him a strange look.

"That your school uniform then?"

"No." He had pulled off the sweater in the hope the t-shirt below would pass the test.

"God, you're one of those posh freaks." The boy had rolled his eyes but still let him trod along. Everything from there was nebulous. They had listened to music and turned it even louder when one of the neighbours complained. Then there had been the bottle and he took it every time it passed him, fizzy with feelings and the urge to please. Then the plan to go to the beach had been there and the stupid wager. He couldn't remember what Mycroft told the other ones but they left quite quickly and he had yelled at him all the way back for it. His brother had been quite unimpressed and had quietly walked on.

"At least take your shoes off." The voice was calm and soft, he didn't resist when his shoes were pulled off.

"Why did you make me look like a baby who has to be back home at dark? You just can't bear it that I could make friends and you never ever will."

"If making friends means getting drunk at the local bus station and bear filthy jokes being made on me, I think I'm not that keen, Sherlock." some of the clothes were pulled out under him and the books moved enough for him to lie more comfortably.

"Did you tell her?" His tongue was heavy now.

"No, and if you can manage to stay out of her way, she might not find out." Sherlock aimed for Mycroft with his feet kicking wildly in the air as he passed the bed. Mycroft was just always so perfect. Never minded being alone, always behaved, always succeeded and no matter what he decided to do to him, never got angry enough to forsake him.

"Myc? I bloody hate you."

"Don't swear. Your behaviour today was common enough without it." He let him drag the blanket up over his shoulder and closed his eyes as the light was turned out and he heard the door close behind his brother.

 

He smiled at his grandmother when she finally decided to go up to bed. Page 246, that was where he had left the letter as a bookmark, unopened. He once more checked if she had gone up and took the book from the shelf over the mantlepiece. His heart was pounding when the envelope ripped open, he literally tore it to shreds. Adrenaline peeked as he folded the letter apart and then waves of shock and endorphine went through him. He would be sitting exams for the selection process at the end of next term, for diplomatic service. A small whimper escaped him, so he covered his mouth with his hand and waited for the waves of hormones to ebb but instead his mind kept sommersaulting, telling him about all the places he would go, all the things he would see. The delirious, victorious feeling stayed with him until he passed Sherlock's door. His heart sunk and he felt like he had been caught red handed at a very guilty deed. "Not his parent. They'll manage, he'll manage." The thought would be with him on infinte loop through the entire night, interrupted only by the recurrence of a soft and smiling face, framed in long brown curls.


	4. Brains like you

When he turned around the corner he could already hear he had come to the right place. Students crowded the street before the house and clogged up the alley. He knew few of them by sight, most faces were unfamiliar. The music was drumming in his ears, people were everywhere, leaning against walls, talking, joking, kissing. Normally he would avoid situations like this, too many people made him dizzy.

"Oi, Mycroft, didn't think you would come. Good to see you!" Terry smiled at him and padded his shoulder before he was distructed by some other guests arriving. He looked around the flat to see if there was a group and conversation he could easily join when Terry returned and pulled him towards a group at the sofa by his arm.

"Everyone, this is Myc, smartest guy I know." He felt himself blush as the others gave him a friendly look and opened up for him to join them.

"What's your subject?" He opened his mouth to answer but Terry was faster, answering as he leaned himself on Mycroft's shoulders.

"He does politics, but believe me, there is nothing he doesn't do or know."

He watched her reaction out of the corners of his eyes. He had spotted her before, admiring her brown curly head during a lecture. He didn't have a name, had never heard her talk, but there was something about her that kept him captivated. He wasn't the only one feeling that way, as much became clear over the evening. Wherever she was, a cloud of people built up, surrounding her like the smell of her heavy perfume. Mycroft kept at the peripherie of it, quite conscious about his chances.

"Stop staring and talk to her. I know my sister, she's into brains like you." Terry's arm was back around his shoulder.

"What about? There's nothing I could tell her."

"Irene?" Terry yelled over the music before he could stop him. The marvellous head popped up, just glancing over them.

"Irene, you were looking for someone to study for that lecture on Mondays right? Well, Myc is doing that as well." With that he gave him a gentle push and Myc stumbled in her direction as if drawn to her by invisible ropes.

 

"So, basically what he tries to get at with it is that the European Union is a unique structure..." His fingers fumbled with the lock on his bike. "Stuck again!"

"Come on, let me try." She bent down and tried to turn the rusty key. Their fingers met and he pulled back immediatly with a gasp, heat building on his face as he became aware of his own silly reaction.

The lock gave in and she smiled at him, her full lips not more than inches away from his.

"Can you take me on the back some of the way?"

"Sure." He suddenly developed a stutter when a strain of her hair brushed over his face. "Where is you...what college?"

"How about yours?" The world went black around him.

"No, college, sh...ared house, Madlingey Road."

"No porter to worry about then." She swung one leg over the bicycle rack and he grabbed hold of the handlebars with trembling fingers.

 

"Now, explain to me again how you managed to fail History and English. Because I don't understand."

Sherlock looked at his feet while mum nervously strolled around him like a cat around its prey. There wasn't much to explain, he was puzzled about the fact he had to go to such pointless classes anyway.

"I failed because I didn't turn up for the lessons. The teahcer is a bore and reads to us from the book, I can do that on my own without having to get up."

"You risk your A-levels because you can't be asked to be in class on time, is that what you are trying to tell me?"

"It's what it says in the letter anyway. And I don't risk my A-levels, that's another year."

"Now, watch your attitude young man!" his father suddenly joined in. "What exactly is wrong with you? We try to offer you everything there is so you have all the possibilities one could possibly want and you sneer at it and try everything in the book to make your mother miserable."

"Sorry."

"That's not even nearly good enough Sherlock. You will use the holidays to get back on track with that History and Literature or I'll..."

Sherlock gave him a demanding look. Indeed or what? What could he possibly threaten him with? His father's face changed as he noticed his threat was futile.

"I know school is not really something that keeps you interested for long, it was the same with Mycroft, but why can't you just do the neccessary and entertain your own studies in your freetime like him?"

"Bernhard, don't!" His mother covered her face, she knew the mentioning would be fatal to the conversation.

"Well, maybe you should have had him cloned, that precious Mycroft of yours instead of having me. Sorry for being a disappointment, dad. Sorry, I didn't turn out a miserable lickspittle like him."

He ignored the yelled curses and left the room suddenly determined to not have himself treated like that any more. He could accept his mother being upset but not him, not from someone who turned up about once a month and knew nothing about him, a stranger claiming to be his father. The bag had not even been unpacked yet since he had arrived from the train station in the morning. He grabbed his jacket and pulled on his shoes, shouldered the bag again.

"Where do you think you are going?" His father was making for the front door but Sherlock dugged under his arms and stooped it open.

"Sherlock!" His mother's voice wasn't angry, more concerned and desperate. He didn't turn round, not this time. Neither tried to follow him once the gate at the end of the path had fallen into its lock. He kept walking and didn't turn back.

 

He left a little note for her on the tray with breakfast in front of the bed before collecting his strayed clothes from the floor. She was never up when he left for the library in the morning and it had become a ritual he would leave coffee for her. The note however, was a novelty and he was quite unsure if it would go down well. He nodded at his flatmate who leaned in the kitchen, trying to fry eggs while fininshing his reading when the phone rang and burst the early morning silence in the house. It was unusual for the phone to ring this early and he instantly had a sense that something out of the ordinary had happened.

 


	5. Another Afternoon Wasted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your comments and kudos, I'm still surprised anyone is reading this :)

With just another month to go to the crucial exam this was just what he had needed. The police station was very busy and most of the people on the benches waiting looked suspicious to him, so he remained standing. He clasped a picture of Sherlock, fairly recent, it had been taken from its frame on the mantlepiece, the back was slightly ripped. It was a week now that he had run out of the house and he hadn't been heard of since. Mum was unable to react in any coherent way, dad just refused to aknowledge the graveness of the situation mumbling something about him coming back if he needed something soon enough. Mycroft knew better, knew about certain habits his brother claimed to have under control but that made Mycroft turn uneasy in his bed at night. 

"Mr. Holmes, I'm here because I would like to file my brother missing." As he spoke it, any energy seemed to evaporate from his body, leaving him boneless and limp. He was told to wait and so he returned to his spot where he had leant agains the wall.

" Gregory Lestrade, how can I help you?"

He handed the picture to the young inspector who took it and gave it a long look.

"I'm looking for Sherlock Holmes. He went missing about a week ago. He's sixteen."

"And you are?"

"His brother, Mycroft Holmes. "

"Any parents?"

Yes, but I'd prefer if you contacted me if there is anything you find out about him. Their relationship has been a little strained lately." Lestrade tried to read his face before nodding his consent.

"I don't mean to worry you any more than neccessary but usually it's hard to find someone in London who doesn't want to be found."

"There's something you might want to know about him. He...I think he got into drugs lately. I know nothing in particular but they were suspecting it at school as well, I talked to some of the teachers the other day."

"I'll come back to you as soon as there is any kind of news." Lestrade got up and pressed Mycroft's hand.

 

As he wandered along the streets it occurred to him for the first time how many homeless people there were in the streets. The thought of his brother in a hoodie in some public toilet trying to get fixed gave him nausea. That boy knew nothing about how to get by and certainly lacked a healthy amount of mistrust towards strangers.

On the bus back to Cambridge he wondered if he should have dropped by his father's office. He felt the need to talk to someone about is fear for Sherlock. He wouldn't understand, his mother understood all too well but was no longer in a state to offer comfort. So he finally picked up his book on international law and tried to concentrate on something else.

 

He walked all the way though it had begun to rain. He didn't want to be alone, his flatmate probably wouldn't be home. So he found himself standing in front of Irene's college, she wasn't there. The porter offered him an umbrella, his coat was soaked and his shoes were squeaking.

"It's too late for that, I think." he smiled at him as he declined the offer.

"Ah, it's never too late for anything. Besides, you look like you needed someone to give you a present today." The elderly man winked at him and Mycroft accepted the umbrella bashfully aware of the pools of water buildig on the floor around him.

Umbrella in hand he marched back all the way until he stood in front of Terry's door. As he rang the bell, a window on the first floor opened and Terry's eternally happy face peeked out and down on him.

"If you're here for Irene,she's not here but you can come in anyway of course." Mycroft simply nodded and bit his lip, by now he had to try hard not to cry. He was cold and in desperate need of a cup of tea.

"Boy you look...come on in." Terry threw a towel at him and offered him a jumper.

"I was in London. Sherlock has run off."

"Did you find him?"

"No, don't even know where to begin looking. I...we haven't talked that much lately. He turned quite introverted, I mean even more than before."

"So sorry, mate."

The topic was quickly dropped and they chatted on, waiting for Mycroft's clothes to dry over the radiator.

 

Another bus trip. Another afternoon wasted. He had a distinct feeling some of the policemen began nodding at him in recognition. That Inspector Lestrade had actually found the boy but both had settled on not forcing him anywhere as long as he kept away from committing any crimes. The chances were good he would run off anyway. The one time Lestrade had dropped him off at their mother's house, it hadn't lasted for more than hours before the fights began. So Mycroft came into the station once a week to meet his brother on neutral grounds. Sometimes it was futile because he wouldn't turn up, sometimes he wouldn't talk but cover him in silence for an hour, sometimes he was actually in some sort of good mood and they would have a chat.

"You're still shagging that woman? Seriously? What is she, blind and deaf?" Sherlock pointed at a lipstick mark on his shirt he had tried to erase with soap, in vain. It seemed this would be one of the chatty meetings.

"I'll be outside." Lestrade grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and winked at the exasperated Mycroft.

"Anything new in your life then?"

"Nope. "

"Ah."

"Did you eat anything today?"

"Nope."

Mycroft reached for his bag. "Come on then, what do you fancy?"

"Curry?"

"Curry it is then, brother mine."

 

They sat on one of the benches in the park, Sherlock on the backrest. He by now refused to eat in buildings, something about an experiment and Mycroft was fine with it, Sherlock probably didn't have a shower in the last week.

"Are you planning to draw this experiment into the winter?" Sherlock found his curry very captivating and kept staring into the plate.

"It will be cold I think, I wouldn't want to be outside later than October, but of course I respect your lifestyle choices entirely." He dropped the fork and ran his fingers along the inside of the container to get to the last remains of sauce. Mycroft offered the remains of his portion but was declined.

"I can't go back. Mum and I...and then there's dad." Mycroft collected all his bravery and took a deep breath.

"One of the guys at my place is moving out. There's a school nearby, nothing fancy but they'd take you, despite...everything."

"So you got it figured all out already, haven't you? Guess what, not interested." Sherlock hissed and dumped the container next to him before storming off.

 


	6. All Sorts of Trouble

He avoided Lestrade's office and the scheduled meetings with his brother for the next three weeks, changing places for sleeping frequently and also keeping moving during the day. Gluesniffing helped with the hunger and it stopped the thinking. He knew there was a natural end to this and he knew he had reached it when he woke one morning with a pounding head and a very sore throat. He tried to get up but it took him a lot of effort, not only because of the cold air having stiffened his bones. He was probably running a fever, judging from the shivers going through him and the sweat building on his temples. Feeling his pockets for any leftover coins he realized he would have to walk the entire way to the police station.

It took him half the day to arrive in front of the building as he had to rest often and had one time fallen asleep in the middle of the street. Lestrade would come out of the building at some point he knew, and so he took his position opposite the building and waited.

"Waiting for me, mate?" Lestrade crouched down to him, giving him a interrogating look all over. "You look not well, actually, I think you need to see a doctor." Sherlock tried to produce an answer but he hadn't spoken for days and his throat was swollen, all that came out sounded like a choke. He felt himself being picked up under the arms and without hesitation, he got into Lestrade's car.

The flat was small but very tidy and he sat on the edge of his chair while he watched the inspector unpacking the meds he had been given for him at the clinic.

"You think you can manage a shower?" He nodded and trodded off towards the bathroom.

"Sherlock, you can stay tonight but I will have to call your parents or I'll get into all sorts of trouble."

His voice creaked and then there was no sound to it any more at all as he uttered Mycroft's name. Lestrade sighed but obeyed, dialing the older brother's number.

 

The cafe was slowly emptying itself as twilight set in over the street outside. He avoided her face, she stared in the cup before her. He lifted his hand weakly when she tried to say something, he had a good idea of what it was, no need to speak it out loud.

"Where did you meet him?"

"Is that important?"

Somehow it was, but he found no logical reason for it and so he gave in.

"You and me, that never would have worked. You're going to be all successful and respectable and I'm...I'm just not. And then all those love notes...Myc, that's just not me at all." She laughed quietly, touching his hand as it rested on the table. He watched her vanish down the street before slowly getting up, making sure he had the umbrella on him this time. As he turned it in his hand, a decision was reached. "You tried it, this is what it got you." he muttered to himself before opening the door. Dangerous disadvantage, these feelings could hinder his revising for days easily.

 

"And you are sure about this?" He unconsciously leaned into his mother's arm on his shoulder.

"We'll be fine, it's just a couple of weeks before he's back at school. Can't believe you managed to convince him to go back." He opened one of the boxes, microscope, books, drawings.

"Are you going to stay till he is here?"

"You really think that is a good idea?" She ruffled his hair and gave him a genuine smile. He managed to smile back but quickly turned back to unpackinghis brother's belongings into the empty room, emotions were not a good idea at the moment.

"Myc, make sure at least you call me sometimes, alright? And...thank you."

 

To his own surprise they spent most of their days in comfortable silence, studying and reading and drinking tea. Fridays, it had quickly become a habit that they would go see a film and have dinner somewhere in town. He knew his brother was watching him carefully for any signs of trouble ahead but he enjoyed the peace too much to risk it. The closeness of his brother stopped the merry-go-round of thought in his head, made it easy to keep up the simplest of structures like eating and sleeping almost regularly.

"Another week, right?" Mycroft nodded.

"Think you'll pass?"

They shared a wide grin and Sherlock broke into giggle.

 


	7. You are leaving again

"You do have the malaria tablets, right? And remember to keep away from ponds and other water, that's where they breed." His mother fussed over his luggage until their father took it from her hands to press it into the trunk that was already too full. 

"He will just do splendid, he always does." Sherlock rolled his eyes upon hearing it. He had been left to hold at least a dozen of suits packed in foil until they were to be loaded into the car as well.

"And please, remember, no water from the tab. That's downright toxic. Remember to brush your teeth with bottled water only. Bernhard, did you pack the charcoal tablets?"

"Mum, everything is fine, I really need to get going." Mycroft took the pile from Sherlock's arm, rolling his eyes at him and smiling. He didn't answer the smile, he felt outright sick. 

"Sherlock, I..." He stared at his feet. 

"What? You're leaving, again. Do you really think I give a damn?" Mycroft nodded and straightened his back, pressing his arm shortly before turning away. 

"Mummey has your ticket for the summer if you ever change your mind. I really would like to see you, Sherli."

Sherlock gave him a very dirty look before turning back into the house. He heard the gravel move under the tires as the car vanished towards the gate. When his parents stepped back inside, he made for his room.

He burnt three of the books Mycroft had given him over their time at Cambridge that night but it didn't make him feel better. Neither did the cocktail of pills he had compiled from his mother's nightstand. He then made for the shirts Myc had handed down to him, slowly ripping them to shreds. The soot from the fireplace stung in his eyes and he wiped them with his arms.

 

She checked the street again nervously, the eyes shifting between the watch on her wrist and the cars passing by. No black car in sight, neither her son's nor her husband's.

"I told you they would forget about it, why did we even bother to come here?" She gave Sherlock a stern look in return for the comment and smoothed down the gown on him once more, he angrily pushed her hand away.

"They will come, maybe it's just the traffic."

"Or maybe they just don't give a shit. I certainly don't." 

"Years of public school and you still swear like that. I should demand my money back." She got hold of her son's face and rubbed something off his cheek. Families around them began lining up for pictures. Girls were hugging each other and crying. Boys received hugs from their mothers and proud padding on their shoulder from fathers.

"I'm going to get to my seat, this is useless and I have to do that stupid speech anyway." Sherlock turned towards the mansion, his strange long limbs sticking out of the gown as if they didn't belong to him. 

Mycroft was panting softly when he ran around the corner towards her, a wrapped something in hand.

"Plane, late, M1, nightmare." He bent forward to catch his breath.

"Where's your father?"

"His secretary called me, he won't make it. Urgent business in Japan, I guess it's about that crash at the stock market. I saw Lestrade on the way up."

She sighed relieved. "Let's find your brother then."

 

Greg had been no less than surprised when the older of the Holmes brothers had made an appearance in his office. He had changed since their last meeting some year ago, the face less young, the attitude of someone who knew about his own importance, an air of authority even. He had shaken the manicured hand with care as he had offered him a seat.

"I'm here at a recreational leave and sought I could size the opportunity to see you." Lines well practiced, he definetly had received negotiation training somewhere on his speedy way up since they had last met at Sherlock's birthday to be celebrated in A&E.

"I'm honoured and worried and the same time." Mycroft had given him a genuine smile. There was no denying that he was proud of his impact on people.

"It's Sherlock's graduation coming up next month and I...well he and I thought you would maybe like to come?"

"So he made it...that's good news. When I last heard from him it didn't sound like it at all. Of course I will try and make the time for it."

This was what had brought him to the car park of a very fancy boarding school. He would surely have no problems remembering where he had parked, his car was the one that earned curious looks from everyone passing by and had caused security to exchange uneasy glances as he got out. He spotted Sherlock on the lawn between teachers and next to a woman that was smaller than him, holding on to a handbag. He waited for the conversation to end before he approached the boy and put a hand on his shoulder. The look he earned sent a warm feeling down his spine. On second thought he got uneasy that his presence should mean so much to a young lad he hardly knew.

"Congrats Sherlock and thanks for inviting me. "

The curly head nodded and the eyes avoided his.

"Brilliant boy, he is. You're..." A teacher with grey hair held out his hand to him and he took it not sure what to say.

"A friend of mine." Sherlock stepped in, the intonation caused a tiny smile on the teacher's face.

"Don't believe anything they say, they are glad to see the back of me here." Sherlock whispered as he pulled him towards their places in the auditorium. Greg hesitated when he saw the name tag saying Mr Holmes but Mycroft indicated him it was alright with his eyes. 

"Won't make it." There was a frown in place on Mycroft's face he had seen seen before.

The speech the boy gave was strangely worded, some elaborate metaphore about chemical reactions and life no one really understood, but civil, no insults or dismissive comments. When Sherlock then stepped up to receive his certificate along with several prices, all there were in fact, except for that for outstanding achievements in PE and that for social behaviour, Greg and Mycoft exchanged a relieved look. It was as strange as the whole event but when Sherlock gave him a tiny, insecure wave from the stage, he knew he had just made someone happy without really knowing how or why.

 


	8. The Skull

The skull had went straight onto the mantlepiece when Sherlock unpacked moving into his new room at the college. Though he had never admitted it towards Mycroft, the skull had been a brilliant gift. He had brought it with him from the Carribean, he claimed to have found it at the shop of some vodoo priest. Sherlock didn't care if he had said it to boast or if it was true, he liked it and also the shock it produced in people when they saw it. It certainly didn't fail to fascinate Victor, who had been assigned the room next to him. Some time during their first day he had simply materialised in Sherlock's room and had not been leaving for long ever since. Sherlock was still puzzled by the fact but had come to accept the presence of the young man, unable to analyse the cause of his interest in a friendship and equally unable to turn him down. So he sat on his bed mostly and listened to Victor chatter endlessly about everything that came to his mind, completely fascinated that someone had chosen to be his friend.

"Your brother must be really cool if he gives you presents like that." He turned the skull in his hands admiring it and scratching the bone with his fingernail as if to test the material.

"My brother is nothing of that sort, he is an idiot."

Victor turned to face him, he was blonde and tall, charismatic even, quite aware of the impact he had on other people.

"Tell me about you." He suddenly dropped onto the bed next to him, it made Sherlock jump, quite anxious to avoid contact.

"Why?"

Victor laughed his captivating laugh and threw his hands over his head. "Boy, you're weird. Just talk, that's what people do."

"There isn't much to say."

"There's a rumour you can read books by just looking at the pages, that you memorize them word by word."

"Not true."

"What about you relation to the royal family? Tenth place in succession to the throne?"

"Not true."

"What is the truth then?" Sherlock had to swallow hard when Victor propped his head on his hand, the glossy gold of his hair falling like cascades through his fingers. What did he want from him? Why was he here? And most of all, what was he to say to make him stay?

"I can tell what people are like from looking at them." He blushed as he said it, it sounded so stupid, but Victor's eyes searched his face with unbroken enthusiasm.

"Show me." Sherlock got up and opened the window, looked down into the court of the college where groups of students had gathered on the lawn. 

"Pick one." Victor pointed to a girl with a pony tail, talking to a friend. Sherlock gave her a short look and began rattling through his deduction. Once he stopped, Victor turned and ran out of the room, he reappeared on the lawn and talked to the girl. When they looked up, Sherlock quickly hid in a corner, the last time he had deduced someone and told them about it, he had spent three days in the hospital ward at school.

"Seriously, that is amazing!" Victor was back in the room, giggling wildly.

"Most would call it freaky I guess."

"I like it, you're... different."

 

From then on they were hardly seen apart. Sherlock sometimes waited for hours for any signs of Victor being awake so they could go to breakfast together, Victor several times spent entire nights with him in the laboratories at Cavendish, patiently listening to his theories and assisting. His own studies were neglected often, Sherlock made sure he wouldn't fail any of the courses. Victor in return organised most of his social contacts, dragged him along to pubs and made sure no one got too close or picked on him. 

"You and me, we are the perfect two." Sherlock tried to open the gate while Victor was dancing and singing next to him, they had won at the pub quiz again and Victor had got drunk snogging some girl until her boyfriend had turned up and they had fled through the backdoor. Sherlock had got used to Victor's romantic adventures and tolerated the string of girls parading by, knowing very well none of them would last long enough to threaten their friendship.

"Tomorrow, we will find you someone. You've played the unattached genius long enough. Half of the girls at that pub were pining for you. Because you look so gorgeous and mysterious." He waved the hands in front of his face while Sherlock dragged him through the gate and up the stairs, towards his room.

"I'm fine."

"You never did, did you?" Sherlock didn't answer. His only reassurance was Victor probably would not remember anything about this conversation in the morning.

"Why?" Victor stopped in the middle of the staircase and turned around. His face was way too close that way, Sherlock could smell the beer in his breath.

"Just not interested."

"Never?"

"Never." Sherlock rolled his eyes. He remembered the state his brother had been in when Irene had left him for some banker in London all too well. They had never talked about it, but he had caught him several times crying. Nothing he was too keen on. 

"Most think we are a couple, you know that, right?"

"Most people are complete idiots." Sherlock slumped into his usual armchair in Victor's room, dangling head and legs over the armrests.

"But you aren't. You think I am?" Victor was watching himself in the mirror while undoing his shirt.

"No. You're tolerable."

"You think you could fall in love with me?"

"Victor, shut up."

"Ouh, at last some reaction."Sherlock gave Victor a last look before leaving the room and burying himself in the duvet on his bed.

 


	9. Businessdinner

"And this must be your son. The last time I saw you, you were no higher than this." The grey haired man chuckled and he almost expected him to ruffle his hair. Nevertheless, Mycroft took the hand offered and smiled forcefully. His father quickly took the conversation over and onto more serious matters, Mycroft sank back into his armchair and watched guests moving through the lobby. The waitress carefully placed a glass on the small table next to him and he tried to catch her eye as she did so. Any attempts of flirtation were brought to a hault when the next guest arrived, immediatly monopolising all her attention onto him by ordering.

The secretary in his father's entourage grinned victoriously as he observed his failed attempt and he gave him a glare.

"Your table would be ready then, gentlemen."

"We're still waiting for Mr. Moss, would you make sure he finds us?" His father got out of his armchair with some effort, he told people he had fallen off a horse during his stay with the Nelson's.

"How are things at the embassy then, Mr. Holmes?" He told some non-commital stories about illustrious guests they had had for dinner and it seemed to satisfy the curiosity of his audience enough to leave him to his own thoughts until the arrival of the soup.

"I have no excuse for being so inexcusably late gentlemen, the only thing I can offer as an explanation is that Irene does own too many shoes to choose a pair quickly." Moss offered his hand to them all as they slightly got off their chairs to greet him, accompanied by half-witty remarks of understanding. She hadn't changed that much, the hair was a shade darker, setting her pocellaine skin off even better than before. The bracelets on her wrist gave soft tingles as they shook hands, they looked expensive as did the rest of her wardrobe. His eyes never made it to her face, he made sure of that, slightly turning his chair in a way that would make it impossible for her to see his eyes either. Moss placed his hand on her lap several times during the meal, she gave witty comments when adressed, smiled and listened the rest of the time. The beef Wellington was completely overcooked, the wine luke warm. He made the waitress take it back to the kitchen and asked for the truffled risotto instead.

"I heard about your promotion Mr Holmes, congratulations. Next stop the White House I assume?"

"Nothing officially decided yet."

"Ah, na, I think that is just a matter of days, isn't it? Though I'm not sure I would like to trade a post in the Carribean for stuffy Washington." He laughed heartily, his hand wandering over Irene's, slightly squeezing her elbow. The risotto was completely oversalted, he dropped the fork with a frown, lifting his hand once more to catch the waitress' attention. She gave him an intimidated look and quickly picked up the plate.

 

"I thought he was married." He took off his jacket as they waited for the car to pull up at the entrance.

"He is." His father held the door open for him to get in, pressing a tip into the porter's hand.

"She spends most of the year in their estate on the countryside. I don't think she is too unhappy about the arrangement."

"Does, uhm...that woman know about that?" His father huffed a rather loud laugh and shook his head.

"Son, of course she does. And I'm pretty sure he pays her well enough to make her forget such an insignificant detail."

"You mean... she..."

"Did you really think a woman like that spends her evenings with such a dodderer because of heartfelt love? I've been informed she is anything but hesitant when it comes to the financial side of things. But she must be worth it, Hamilton is said to have bought her an appartment in Soho for the benefit of having her to himself for a month."

 

"Did you enjoy yourself a little or was it just work?" He pressed a kiss on his mother's cheek leaning over her armchair from behind. 

"Everything alright son?" The uncommon gesture raised her suspicions.

"Food was awful, conversation beyond dull." He tried not to hurry on his way to the bathroom.

"Mycroft?" She had gotten up and followed him. 

"I think there might have been something wrong with those oysters." He quickly locked the door behind himself and bent over. He heard her mutter something about brandy and shuffle away.

 

"My mother is nagging me to accept Mycroft's invitation to the Carribean during the break." He held the letter out to Victor clenched between two fingers. He moved the straw hat out of his face and took the pages.

"Don't see why you are so hestitant about it. I'd be off and away in the blink of an eye. It will be coursework and dullness for me and then not even you around to keep me entertained. I might even have to find a job, dad is getting rather serious about that whole joining the real world thing." A slight shudder went through the slender figure at the thought.

Sherlock lifted his feet out of the Cam and rested his head on Victor's lap. Now that he had broken up with Judy, he didn't seem to mind Sherlock's breaches of personal space. The sun burned on his forehead so he covered it with Victor's arm.

"Wanna come?"

"You serious?"

Sherlock shrugged staring into Victor's blue eyes above him. "Mum always wanted me to make friends and bring them home, so why not?"

"Does he live by the beach? You think we could like go sailing?"

"You're coming then?"

"Of course! Can't leave you alone, you'd be lost without me." With that Victor slumped back and rested is arm on the tense muscles on Sherlock's stomach. 

"Arrogant idiot." Sherlock muttered between two happy sighs, listening to the wind going through the tall grass around them.


	10. So Easy to Hate

His brother is of to work every morning at precisely ten past eight, eating precisely 238 gramms of cereal with a quarter of a melon and one apple cut into it by the elderly woman doing his kitchen. She is warm and friendly, she does them pancakes as soon as the door closes behind Mycroft. He is usually up long before Victor and slouches in the chair on the patio under the fan, making sure to leave marks on the cushions because he knows it will annoy his brother immensly. Life is easy and slow like honey running from a spoon when he lets himself glide into the glittering water of the pool. There is nothing to disturb the soft and gentle sound of his arms cutting into the water. Sometimes he runs through new ideas for experiments to be conducted once he is back at his beloved laboratory, sometimes he thinks about things he read, filing them in the right places of his mind. Sometimes he thinks about Victor's eyes and the way he breathes when he falls asleep on the couch, sometimes about nothing at all.

"How can you get up so early if there is no reason? Did you sleep at all?" Victor yawns and stretches before discarding his dressing gown carelessly on the already heated tiles of the patio. He takes two more stretches before diving into the water head first, his body producing the minimal amount of disturbance to the surface of the water. His head reappears close to Sherlock before he dips it under the water again to smoothen out his hair.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Myc gave me some of the things he works on. He wants my opinion."

"Are you playing your little mind games again?"

"It's not mind games, it's deduction."

Victor rolls his eyes and starts to swim towards the other end."You remember that girl at the beach we met the other day? I promised to meet her some time this afternoon. Think I'll do some pictures with her."

"You'll never learn. Thought you decided to stay away from girls for a while."

"I need some more photos for the folio, they want it next month." Victor's head ducked under the water again.

 

"Sherlock? I'm back." He yelled through the house, expecting his brother to be too far gone in some experiment to actually notice him coming home. And some part of him was horribly afraid of walking in on something between his brother and whatever Victor was to him. He had seen copies of the pictures the young man had taken, Sherlock prominent in most of them, some showing off his naked upper body like a model in a fancy perfume add.

"Over here." He was slowly pouring a strange brown mass into another sauce pan on the stove with full concentration.

"How toxic exactly?"

"I wouldn't eat it."

"And still you abuse my sauce pans for it?"

"Didn't ask you to invite me." "Where's the other one?"

"You know his name. Went out with a girl he met yesterday."

"Ah."

"He is not overcompensating and I don't care." The sauce pan was empty and Sherlock hurried to fill it up with water.

"Didn't say he did." Mycroft opened the fridge and rummaged through for anything edible left over by the two.

"You were thinking it. I can hear you think."

"No you can't. After all, I'm the smart one."

 

The next time he looked up from the papers it was close to eleven at night, he rubbed his sore eyes and streched his tense back turning out the golden cane of light of the lamp on the desk. Through the French windows of his office he could see the light streaming from his own living room into the small courtyard. His brother sat on the couch facing the door, not moving. He almost looked like a statue of buddah, the hands stapled under his chin and the dressing gown showing off the muscles of his chest and stomach. The small grain of jealousy worming its way to the surface was quickly overruled by a strong wave of protectiveness.

"Of course you don't care, brother mine." he sighed and opened the windows, hoping for some breeze from the sea to clean the room of all those sticky vapours that usually built up during the day. He stood for a while, eyes fixed on the motionless statue.

"Sherli." The eyes moved slowly, life streaming back and spreading from there through the figure. Mycroft could tell the exact moment his brother recognized him, his eyes lit up for a split second just before he was back in the room. He looked at him in the way he always had as a child, demanding clarification to all the mysteries of the world by his Myc, his brother. The way he had looked at him before things became difficult, before Mycroft had left him behind and in his eyes betrayed him. It never lasted long these days, this brotherly intimacy Mycroft always denied had ever existed and mostly would never admit to missing.

"I think there is no point in waiting up, I saw them making their way to the house next door. She is Macaulay's daughter." He gave a vague nodd in the direction of the Macaulay's house and watched the information spread through his brother.

"I'm not waiting for him. I was thinking. He is my friend Myc. My only one."

Mycroft took a moment to run through all the possible implications of that statement before carefully wording an answer. "Sherlock, people generally care less than you and me do. They don't feel things as...intensively. Caring is not an advantage and friendship the most dangerous affair of all."

The pale eyes wandered to his forehead as if rereading the statement directly from his brain. The energy of the body changed, Sherlock moved.

"I need to collect some more of those fluorescent jellyfish. I think my experiment went wrong."

"Now?"

 

His brother moves the net slowly through the water, the jellyfish are easy prey, they float in the waves without resistance to the movements it dictates. He carefully dumps them in the bucket, by now full with the glowing, moving mass.

"Got enough I think." He watches his brother slowly walking back to the house, bucket in one hand, shoes in the other.

"He is going to London you know. Wants to be an artist."

"Ah." His brother's head doesn't turn, still he knows what the face looks like.

"I knew you would say that."

"He is not going to pay for that."

"I could work."

"As what? Half a chemist? Seriously, dad is going to kill you and then me."

"Why do you give a damn about what he thinks?"

"I give something about you running away from responsibility again. Couldn't you just finish your degree and wait with ruining your life until afterwards, for once?"

"It's dull! I sometimes think I'm going out of my mind. It's killing me!" He is yelling now and he wants Mycroft to yell back at him because he never yells and somehow it would mean something if he did. The bucket is put down slowly and carefully. The head turns. He didn't mean to say all this when they came here but it's pressing against him inside, it's getting too much to hold. His brother's eyes search him, first the face, then the arms. He knows he can't see the little marks on them here in the dark but he knows he can tell they are there from the way his stare makes Sherlock twitch.

"It's under control." Sherlock hears himself speaking but doesn't feel it, instead he feels the pang of pain that is rushing through his brother.

"Oh fucking hell, Sherlock!" Not yelled, just calm and silent.

"He doesn't know." He will not allow Myc to think badly of Victor, not for a second, the only reason he did not put much more pressure on that knife when it accidently slipped over his wrist last month. The one sitting next to him when getting up is too much of an effort, when everything is completely dark.

"What is he? A moron? He doesn't want to know."

"It's not his fault."

"You are not going to move to London." The bucket is picked up again, his brother moves towards the house. All quiet, all calm, so easy to hate.


	11. Mistaken

"Mr Holmes, there you are. I would like to introduce you to someone." He nodded his head politely at the gentlemen he had been talking to and followed their host towards another group gathered in the dining hall of the embassy picking up a new glass of champagne on the way to keep his hands occupied. The background music tore on his nerves, he hated nothing more as when classical music was abused as a backdrop for polite conversation. You couldn't listen the way you ought to, you couldn't ignore it either.

"Gentlemen, Mrs Wallop, this is Mr Holmes, our newest and most promising arrival, he was transferred here only last week." 

Mycroft nodded politely at the faces around him, smiling and shaking some sweaty hands. The eyes of the lady in the creamy lace dress were glazed slightly, she kept staring at him even when he tried to stop her by staring back. Indeed she seemd to mistake it rather as an encouragement, fixating him over the rim of her champagne flute. 

"And your family is settling into life at Washington well Mr Holmes?"

"Ah, I'm not married. So it's only me facing the culture shock."

"That's the crux about this whole system. We keep our young men so busy they hardly have time to found families any more." The comment found areeing muttering and nods in the crowd.

"I'm sure you will find the women over here to be a good company as well." one of the elder men snickered.

"I'm sure I will." He lifted his flute towards them, excusing himself pointing it to another group standing near the piano. He knew all too well that it was about another year before his bachelor life would begin to look really awkward on him. Most of those who had started training with him had by now found themselves someone. For some it had been matches of love, for others, ones of convenience. He found himself pondering the option more and more often these days.

"It's not like we meet that often, I'm out and about working most of the time and she has several charities and hobbies keeping her occupied. But it's good to have someone who will have your back. Love is overrated in my opinion." William had offered to have his wife look into possible candidates for him during one of their lunches at the club on his last stay in London. Back then he had politely turned the offer down. Only the other day however, an article on the matter had caught his eye, a magazine he had picked up by accident when reaching for the New York Times on the plane. A psychologist in London counselled couples who were about to enter such arrangements. He had jotted the name down in his notebook to his own surprise.

 

The flat still smelled of fresh paint and boxes still lined the walls of his study, the interior designer had left the sample books for the new curtains on the table with a note urging him to make a decision soon. Mycroft loosened his tie and poured himself another drink, undoing the bubblewrapping around the tumbler. A glance at the clock strengthened his determination and he reached for the phone, flipping through his notebook for William's number.

 

Her name is Madleine, born in Aix en Provence, father involved with politics, mother thinks herself an artist. She studied in Oxford, slightly younger than you. Caroline pushed the photograph over the table towards him. He quickly took it before the waiter could see it. Not exactly good looking, not exactly ugly, just forgetable face. But then that wasn't the point of this, was it? He kept telling himself so.

"I'm here until Tuesday. If you would be so kind as to pass on my contact details. Is she interested in concerts or the opera?"

"She plays the violin rather well, so she should be in for it." He nodded at Caroline and quickly shifted the conversation to less delicate topics, watching the rain pour onto London's streets.

 

The beats of the music streaming from the place across the street were rather disturbing. He gave the line of people waiting to be inspected by a mountain of muscle and tatooed flesh a glaring look while waiting for Madleine who had forgotten her purse at their table. Their conversation had not been coming easy but never stopped and somehow he felt less disappointed than he thought he ought to. He nodded at people passing him, all faintly familiar, it was one of those places one was meant to go. One however was probably not meant to yell across the street at the top of one's voice even when recognizing one's brother queuing to be admitted to the drug den across the street. Lord Salisbury gave him a very curious look when he pushed past him, gloves in one hand, crossing the street in one determined straight line without any consideration of the cars going by. "Sherlock!" he yelled again when he had crossed the street halfway. He hadn't had any news from the boy for months, not since he had moved to London and declared himself no longer a part of the family which had caused dad to cut him off penniless.

He grabbed the skinny arm hard in order to turn the face to meet his angry stare. The muscles tensed as he tried to free himself. 

"Oi, you perv what do you want?" He froze with shock and embarassment.

"I'm very sorry, I mistook you for someone."

"Yeah, well that's what you will tell your wife anyway, ain't it?" There was laughter from the crowd and the young man nodded towards the other side of the street sticking his tongue out. Mycroft apologized once more before tunring from the laughing and yelling entourage of the boy. He was shaking and it was getting harder to surpress a sob with every step.

"Unbelievable how authorities can tolerate such an establishment just across the street I have no idea." he made a noncommital sound in response holding the door of the car open for her. It took her a moment to gather her long, elegant coat so he could close it.

"There must also be something profoundly wrong with families these people come from. I mean, can you imagine what brings these kids to do drugs and god knows what else? I only read the other day that most of them were abused or came from violent families."

"Who exactly would them be?" he tried to sound only mildly involved.

"You know, those drug addicts and...homosexuals." Her voice slightly pitched as she spoke the words.

"Ah, those you mean." he cleared his throat. "Where would you like me to drop you off?"

"I was rather hoping we could still take a turn by the Millerton's soirée."

"I'm so sorry, but I have a lot on my desk still for tonight." 

He hugged her when she got out. Mrs Millerton opened the door to her and he knew he wouldn't be missed too much. He took the car around the corner and stopped it at the deserted sidewalk. He sat in the darkness of the car, both hands on the wheel staring into the pitch blackness of the park nearby. How could he mistake someone for his brother? An inexcusable lapse, his judgment faulted by sentiment. Something was to be done, but he couldn't figure it out just now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think!


	12. The Tortoise

The fight had been epic.He didn't recall any details, somehow Victor hadn't liked the way he had treated the boy he had brought back to the flat. From there the topic had shifted towards the usual. Money, cleaning, his antisocial behaviour, his addictions. At some point he had got up and closed the door behind himself. He didn't know what to say, he felt completely out of his wits and exhausted. Somehow he had a nagging feeling that Victor was mad about something other than he said he was. He was behaving increasingly irrational and it was annoying to the utmost. He didn't know how long he had been sitting inthe same spot in the bench in the park when he heard the familiar steps approaching. He got in the seat next to him without another word, both of them continuing to stare ahead. 

"You have no idea, do you?"

"About what?"

Victor sighed and kicked invisible object on the pavement before him.

"Living with you is hard work, believe me. Those mood swings, do you even notice you haven't left the flat for almost a week?"

"There was no reason."

"Well, find a reason! I won't watch you stare at the wall for another day."

"What is it to you how I spend my days?"

"What it is to me?" Victor huffed. "I care about you. A lot. And I can see it doesn't do you any good."

"Well, don't then. You better find someone else to live with then." Sherlock got up, he was shaking. 

"Sherlock, don't be silly!" Victor followed him, he fastened his step to get rid of him but he wasn't in his best form, he had forgotten to eat he noticed now. He couldn't avoid looking at himself in the reflection in a car window parked in the street. His face was hollow, his hair almost greyish. The bandage around his wrist had turned a dark and dirty shade of white, he had accidently slipped trying to open a tin in rage with a knife when Victor had forced him into eating again. It wasn't that he tried to be difficult on purpose. He just couldn't help it. Whenever he tried to behave for Victor's sake it all seemed to get rather worse. So he stopped doing anything, his mind working through the darkest corners of his mind palace, he felt like drowning in the air around him.

 

"Gavin and I are leaving now." Victor was pulling on his jacket, Sherlock could hear, but didn't turn to face them. He had overheard their argument, that Gavin urging Victor once more to call his brother or the police to take care of him. 

"You're not his parent and I can just see it is wearing you down. Why the fuck do you let him torture you?" Gavin was slightly older, by no means in Victor's league, almost plum and agonizingly slow in the intellectual department. With the girls he had never tolerated anything other than perfection in appearance, but that Gavin was different. Sherlock wanted to say something but his insde was on fire with shame and fear. Victor sighed and turned to leave. When he heard the door fall into its lock he began counting backwards. Nine, they had reached the floor level, eight the front door slowly closing, seven Gavin taking Victor's hand to comfort him, six, they start walking towards the station, five, four, they pass the shop at the corner, three, two, one, they're gone. His hand finds its way under the cushion of the couch. The tiny plastic bag is worryingly empty. He would have to get it refilled sometime soon but right now that headache is all he can worry about. 

 

It's almost two in the morning when the door of his office opens without a knocking. Greg tries to control the horror in his face when he recognizes the man behind that worn face.

"You?" is all he manages. Sherlock doesn't reply but sinks deeper into his coat that seems to stand on its own from all the dirt, he looks like a tortoise hiding in its shell, way too big for the bony body. The ghost drops into the chair, his eyes void.

Greg slowly gets up and silently locks the door behind them. Hardly anyone is in anyway but this is delicate. He watches the boy pick up some of the folders from the mess on his desk, flapping through them nonchalantly. 

"You've got the wrong man arrested." He drops them back on the table.

"Is that why you came?"

"No, just thought you might want to know. It's the brother. That alibi is fake, anyone can see."

He gathers the folders and takes them out of his reach trying to find Sherlock's eyes. "What are you here for Sherlock?"

There's no answer but a shift in the face. He looks like that homeless boy again that slept on his couch those many years ago.

"Want me to call him?" The dirty array of curls shakes.

"Washington."

"Your parents?" The grin turns sarcastic.

Greg rubs his face. He will regret this. "Let's go then."


	13. Unearthy Beauty

He downright despised the guy. He was so smooth and well spoken, everybody's darling. When he entered the room no one was able to escae his aura. Certainly he wasn't. He found himself staring at he muscles flexing underneath his suit as the idiot gave one of his ridiculous speeches. There were at least a dozen reasons for hating him, at least half of them well founded and explicable, right now, he couldn't remember a single of them. the way his moist lips glistened when speaking and the movements in that smooth face when deformed by a smile, downright obscene.

"That is why I came to you Mr. Holmes. Is there any way I could convince you to help us out in this...delicate affair?"

Expensive watch, no wedding ring. He swallowed. Twice. There was no way he would get himself involved in this madness. Half of what that vision of unearthly beauty had just presented as their new strategy of negotiation was partly or completely illegal. There was just one answer he would be able to give to this. Besides why should he neglect his own work just to get involved in this folly?

"Ah."

"Mr Holmes, I know you have, certainly justified, objections to my plan. I would so very much cherish your constructive input. So don't feel like you should hold back on criticism. After all I'm American, I can take it like a man." He laughed, the long, bronzed fingers resting on his desk flexed slightly as he did so. The accent was indeed appalling. That strange way of pronouncing the a send shivers down his spine that seemed to pool up in a very strange place in his lower stomach. 

"Do you have any kind of official support for this?"

The fingers gave a short, happy drum onto the top of some of those brown folders piling up. The smile accompanying it was simply unnerving.

"I'll think about it."

"That's all I'm asking for." He took a sealed envelope from the inside of his jacket and placed it in the very center of Mycroft's desk. Then he vansihed out of his dusty office, drawing a hysterical giggle from the secretary as he passed her desk winking at her. 

 

"But what if they are connected?"

"Greg, please tell him, there's no talking about your job at breakfast!" Greg smiled sadly at her. He could tell she was mentally on her way out with regard to their relationship. He had got used to it. First they were impressed by his job, the danger, that wickedness it suggested. Then they realized it meant he wouldn't turn up for dates, was tired in the evenings, fell asleep at the theatre. Janette had stuck around longer than most of her predecessors and he had known bringing Sherlock back with him could be the fatal incident for this. He had walked into it in full awareness of the consequences but still unable to react differently. The boy was crouched over a mug of tea, balancing himself on the balls of his feet instead of sitting down, a position as unstable as his moods. As if he was always ready to get up and run, he never seemed to wind down. 

"Do you see any evidence in the files for that?"

"For goodness sake Greg!" She grabbed her purse and the keys, leaving the remains of her breakfast on the table, slamming the door behind herself. Sherlock didn't even react, he had ignored her from the minute he had stepped into his appartment. He had mumbled something about Aspergers and eating disorders to her, forgetting to mention his drug addiction as explanation for the behaviour. The sigh he had earned in response had already made him plan the weekend without out her.

"There's a pattern in the way they die. Nothing consciously ritual, more a kind of habitual way of going about the murder." The man suddenly jumped up from his strange position on the chair, now standing on its seat towering over Greg.

"Do you think you will make it through the day without..."

"So you'll let me come with you?" It was as if someone had turned on the light behind those eyes.

"Answer my bloody question!" he tried to sound fatherly, authoratitive but the effect was lost as Sherlock jumped off the chair nding elegantly like a cat. 

"If we find that weapon we could prove it's the same person...where's..."

"Sherlock! I'm serious! I won't tolerate that kind of thing as long as you are around here."

The man reappeared, completely dressed and looked at him as if searching his face. He kept very still under the interrogative stare.

"Alright."

"You think you manage?"

"As long as I don't get bored..."

"Bored?" Greg huffed. "Seriously? That is the problem?"

"Will that annoying woman be here tonight?"

"Janette?" He wondered if he should defend her against the insult.

"No, I don't think so."


	14. Because I like you

"Mother, this is really not the right moment...yes, I know it is his birthday, I will try...mother...I'm actually..." Mycroft dropped the handset onto the table and bent down to lace his shoes. The voice was loud enough so he still caught most of what his mother was saying. Some Sally was back in town and would be showing up for Christmas. No news from Sherlock. Roses infested again, no chance of winning the neighbourhood's competition this year, father furious about it. Tie? probably too much. Shirt? He would feel odd without one.

"Mother, I really need to get going. No, I don't! It's not strictly work tonight. There is nothing I could tell you about...no...yes, talk to you again soon." With a sigh he disconnected the line and gave the receding line of hair on his head a last worrying look, nodding at his driver who had been waiting patientlyat the door.

 

"I hope you like steak, because if you are vegetarian, I have nothing I can offer you." He wondered if these teeth were real. They shone in the strange light streaming from Timothy's living room. 

"Not vegetarian, no..." he cleared his throat, giving the place a quick glance. He was unsure what he had expected, but was still surprised how welcoming it felt.

"Red or white?"

"Whatever you have."

"Myc, you are impossible." The laugh made him jump. He wandered towards where he suspected the kitchen, following the low voice and found himself in the spacious living room where candles were burning on the huge, dark dining table. 

Their fingers touched as he handed him the glas. He tried to grin at him but really his mind told him to drop the glas and run for the door and not just because of the horrid background music. Some of the harmonies made him flinch.

"So what is all this about?"

Timothy sighed and strolled over to a desk taking a folder from a drawer. His hair shone in the light of the fireplace. He selfconsciously ran a hand through his own again. 

"I...got in...possession of some information about a drug cartell in Brasil." He took the offered folder, making sure to keep distance to those smooth hands. 

"Well, nothing out of the ordinary, is it? Why should we be interested or...get involved?"

"Page 86."

"Blimey..." the shock upon recognizing the face in the pictures dropped him onto the velvet couch behind him. 

"Thought you know him." 

"Well, of course, he...one of my father's oldest friends. They...worked together."

"That's why I can't ask for support at the office. I tried but Pegasus called me ridiculous when I showed him that." He waved towards another pile of folders. Mycroft thumped through them, quickly taking in the information.

"The evidence is absolutely waterproof, why would he..."

"Page 239."

"Holy! Are you serious!"

"Yep, he too, is in it to his knees. I only got hold of that yesterday. Rare or medium?"

"What?"

"Your steak!"

"Ah, whatever you have."

He finished his glas in one big gulp, a slight tremble getting hold of his hands as he contemplated the full impact of Timothy's discovery.

"So, you're up for it?" He watched him refill his glass with another generous helping of wine. 

"Why me?" There was a slight smile creeping up on the face opposite him.

"Because you're smart, you're reliable and I like you."

 

The living room was covered in paper. He cursed as he tried not to step on anything official. The dressing gown in the middle was spinning like a whipping tops mumbling to himself. 

"Coffee?" he hesitantly held out a cup to Sherlock. There had been no reaction to his appeals for more than just a few hours. At some point he had believed to have become invisible, then suspected the young man had taken something again but then how could he, he hadn't left the house since they had come back from the crime scene. Gruesome business really. Another execution made up to look like a suicide. He would have missed the difference really, but Sherlock...Greg sighed and withdrew the hand with the cup as he was so institently ignored.

"I know that face, I just have to find it..." the turning stopped, with his eyes firmly closed Sherlock dropped into one of the chairs, behind the lids there was movement as if he was dreaming. 

"Let me know if there is anything I can actually do." Greg got up and strolled towards the TV. If he was ignored anyway, there was no reason why he should miss the Chelsea match. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	15. Family

The airport was crammed, Sherlock tried to avoid touching anyone but the old man in the seat next to him kept coming near, somehow trying to conquer his armrest. Standing wasn't an option either, the only free space was too close to that annoynig family and their whining children.

"Make sure you call tonight." Greg had borrowed him a suitcase and some clothes, he had refused to go back to the flat to fetch anything. 

"Sherlock, I'm serious, I'll have the entire Brasilian police looking for you if I don't hear from you within a day. Understood?" He still felt Greg's fingers digging into the flesh of his arm. He had nodded to get rid of him, withdrawing his arm more forceful than he had meant to. And then there had been that awful, uncomfortable hug as he went through security, he still felt itchy and strange remembering.

He thought of Victor, the jokes they had told each other about their fellow travellers back when they had been here together, waiting for their flight to visit Mycroft. It seemed a lifetime ago. The old man stepped on his foot when he got up to rush towards the gate. Sherlock stayed behind to the very last minute, suddenly hesitant to leave, his body heavy as if someone had filled his limbs with cement.

 

"I really ought to be going." Mycroft stretched, dropping some papers in the process which made him blush. Timothy caught them as they slipped down his thigh, carefully putting them back into their cover.

"They start to ask strange questions, Wallace asked me into his office to ask if I was ill because I look so tired. Tries to have me go on vacation." He leaned his head onto the rest of the huge chair, a soft smile on his lips as he studied Timothy's face. It had grown familiar very quickly. The lines and the shadows that caught in them, the freckles around the wing of the nose.

"Why don't you go on vacation then?" There were golden spots in the brown of his eyes. Like the clouds in the sky would foretell the weather, they gave the man's moods away.

"I would feel obliged to show up at my father's birthday and right now, I don't know I want to." He waved gingerly at the cluttered table in front of them.

Timothy chuckled and got up, making his way into the kitchen once more.

"Do you have family?" His heart jumped as he stepped over that final line between work and friendship or whatever this was. He heard the fridge open and close again, the man reappeared and leaned in the frame of the door, a slice of cold pizza in hand. He studied Mycroft's face and he almost feared to have overstepped his boundaries.

"I do, yes. A mother in New York. That's it. What about you?"

His pulse sped up as Sherlock's face flashed in front of his eyes. He straightened himself in the chair, trying to regain a relaxed posture. 

"There's mother and my younger brother, Sherlock. A grandmother on the paternal side, some aunts and cousins."

"What makes you bring an entire ocean between you and them?" His expression was sincere and open, he didn't seem to realize the impact of his enquiry.

"Don't wet your pants, you don't have to tell me." Timothy smirked and swallowed the last bits of pizza. "You probably grew up in one of those mansions with butlers and a nanny and called your father sir or something.

"What makes you think that?" Mycroft felt heat coiling in his stomach.

"Dunno, you have that...aristocratic air. Always so...reserved and almost void of human feelings."

"I really should go now."

"Myc!" He felt the hand on his chest before it actually touched him. He stopped, not looking at the man, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the white wall in front of him.

"Myc." The voice was softer now, almost pleading. 

"You have no idea. Of nothing." His posture was melting quickly, his muscles refused to obey his command he was glued to the spot, the warmth of the hand almost painful.

"Then tell me."

Mycroft reached for the hand to remove it but found himself incapable. Instead he clung to it, his fingernails digging into the flesh.

"I have no idea where he is."

"Who?"

"Sherlock." He said it and kissed him. Just to make him shut up. Kissed that stupid face that was so offensively happy all the time, so confident, so impossibly beautiful. Someone had to wash it away and he would. The lips opened he felt his tongue on his. He was drawn closer, there were arms everywhere, his hips grinding into the denim opposite. He drew back to gasp for air and hissed when he felt teeth connecting with his throat. The buttons of his shirt gave in quickly to the fingers making their way up and he tried to defend himself by pulling helplessly at Timothy's pullover. When his back connected with the wall behind him, he pulled at the belt with full force, making the man release a breath as his body collided with his own, now touching at every possible point. The kissing stopped for a moment, brown eyes hovering over his. He groaned with anger, trying to regain the lips he now missed with painful force but Timothy drew back, taking hold of his shoulders instead, drawing his face into the wool of his jumper. His heart seemed determined to crush his chest, punching him from inside the ribcage. A sob dripped from his lips with every beat, he couldn't breathe but instead collapsed to the floor where he would stay, carefully watched by those offensive, beautiful brown eyes.

 

He didn't make it to work the next day, stayed in the foreign bed instead, naked but wrapped in some blanket that had materialised around him at some point in the night. 

"Must be someone special that brother of yours." He pressed the cup to his lips and gave that man a hateful look.

"I see. Just because you slept with me doesn't mean you will talk to me in the morning. Very well." Timothy flopped onto the bed, resting his head on Mycroft's thigh, looking up through long lashes.

"What do you want from me? Did you really think this was of any significance to me? I was stressed, you took the opportunity."

"Me?" Timothy laughed, seemingly not the least offended. "Myc, I'm not the one who had a nervous breakdown, sobbing my brother's name in my sleep."

He answered with nothing but a slurping sound drinking his tea, not taking his eyes off the man resting too close to be comfortable.

"I ought to be leaving. Don't want to start rumours with us both not turning up." He kissed the revealed spot of bare chest where the blanket had slipped, it sent shockwaves through Mycroft's body.

"Feel free to stay, or leave. Just make sure you close the door." With that he disappeared in the shower.

 

How does one get a job in a drug cartell? Sherlock had spent quite some time thinking about it. He had made contact as a customer, then volunteered for smaller jobs. It worked like any other company really. That's what he told Greg anyway when he called him once or twice a week, always walking to that run down bar to use the phone. The other customers knew who he worked with and made sure not to listen, trying hard to not to seem interested, most of them working for the timber company up the river.

He killed the boredom with beer and anything else he got his hands on, the days were too long and too hot, he hardly spoke to anyone but the wife of his boss who served the drinks at that place since she had beeen proclaimed too old for taking part in the pole dancing. She was an odd woman, always cheerful and always speaking before thinking. She had stranded here during a gap year, trading a job at her father's shop in London for this jungle den and a, as it seemed, rather exciting marriage to the local drug lord. He frowned when she would pinch his cheek and call him dear but he didn't really mind to his own surprise.

 


	16. Elephants and Sentiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos on the last chapter. These really keep me going.

When he thought about it for too long he began questioning if there was any fault in the plan, it simply was too easy and still it all went smoothly. They had went into the office during his lunchtime, Timothy flirting the secretary out of her senses while he copied the signature and a letter from his lawyer with the camera hidden in his sleeve. In and out in under ten minutes, no traces left behind but the ridiculous grin on their faces and the embarrasing blush on the secretary.  
"You certainly look more like a lawyer, I shall be the assistant." Tinothy laughed out loud as a insulted pout built on Mycroft's face.  
They otherwise kept their distance at work, only aknowledging each others existence by the occasional nod in the hallway. One of these days, however, he found himself dancing in his kitchen to the most cheesy song blowing in from the neighbour's open kitchen window. One of these days he found himself pondering the flowers on the lawn of the car park. One of these days he he began to suspect he might be happy, or worse, in love.

"Thank you for taking the time to meet me." Mycroft carefully readjusted his fake glasses, nodding at Timothy who handed him the prepared letter from his briefcase. The banker gave it a suspicious look, reading it twice.   
"Voluntary disclosure? Is there any...inducement for it?"  
"Oh, no, my client just wants to draw a clear and clean line under some business. If you would be so kind as to cooperate with the tax authorities when they contact you."  
"Certainly, though I don't really..." Mycroft interrupted him by getting up and holding out his hand to him which the puzzled banker took and shook hesitantly. Again, in and out in under ten minutes.

"And that was that." Timothy muted the TV where the news channel replayed he video of the arrest of the man they knew as Pegasus for the third time. With him a couple of other people had been arrested and houses and offices searched. The police was looking for the two men who had acted as his lawyers and started the whole affair. He snorted at the the facial composite of them, a trip to the hairdresser would suffice to erase any remains of similarity.  
"Did you decide about Christmas?" Mycroft shifted uneasily under the hand that came to rest on his thigh.  
"I don't want to go over. I'll ask them to give me some work, claim to feel altruistic by volunteering to work for those who have small children or something."  
"You can't hide forever." It was a simple truth but still he would try. He dreaded the long, silent evenings at the house with everyone avoiding the several elephants in the room. Indeed there were so many elephants in the room he sometimes feared he would be suffocated by one of them.   
"What plans do you and your mother have then?" The smile on Timothy's face was thin.   
"The usual. I will cook something for her, we will watch TV."  
"You love her?"  
"She's my mother."  
The silence stretched as they stared at the muted screen. Mycroft slowly rested his head on Timothy's shoulder. He held his breath until he felt a cheek coming to rest on top of his head and lips kissing along his hairline.

The snow fell heavy as if the sky had heard his plea to slow down his arrival. Eventually the car pulled up in front of the gate to his parental house. He asked the driver to stop and grabbed his luggage, making the rest of the way by foot. The air smelled fresh and crisp, a smell that hit him even more, having spent so much time in the city. He ran his fingers through the snowy blanket on the leafs, waiting for it to melt in the warmth of his palms.   
"Your nose is absolutely gorgeous when it glows like that." Timothy had kissed the tip of his nose before smudging his face into a handful of snow he had been hiding behind himself. The memory wrinkled his face into a smile for a moment, brought back that afternoon in New York before he had gotten on the plane that brought him here.   
The house lay silent in between the sleeping garden, like a cat cowering and waiting for its prey with one eye only half open. Eventually his eyes settled on the windows of what had once been his brother's room. They were dark and blind, only half illuminated from the spare light from his father's study beneath. When his foot touched the footmatt in front of the door, he raised his hand to ring but hestitated once more, closing his eyes. He imagined what scene the ring would interrupt. His mother was probably somewhere in the living room, maybe she was knitting, maybe she was simply waiting. His father probably was somewhere in that dark cave of his, piling books onto the desk in his study, maybe thinking about how to pimp his roses for next year's competition. For some reason he couldn't imagine them in the same room, talking. But maybe that was what it was after fourty years of living together. The enormity of all those years burned on his brain and awakened the elephants that had been hiding for the one second they would find him unguarded, defence smudged by sentiment, never to leave him alone until he would have crossed at least half the way into London. His finger still on the button of the bell, he didn't move but listened into the night, feeling horribly aware of what he would set into motion by simply pushing that button. But then, it was cold and the bag grew heavy in his hand, the handles cutting into the flesh that had caressed that beloved face only hours ago. The sound cut through the night and tore it apart. he straightened himself and put on a smile.


	17. Silent Nights

The time dripped slowly out of the tall clock in the hallway. Nothing seemed to move. It gave him headache, people talking without saying anything, laughter about inane jokes. He had tucked into dinner, reviving an old habit of overeating to slow down his brain when faced with with unbearable levels of social interaction. He caught himself twice about to utter a comment only Sherlock would have understood just to be reminded of his absence. His mother had put him next to some blond, thirty year old girl who had tried to start a conversation with him twice. It had died miserably somewhere between the stuffing and his third glass of wine. 

It was then that the phone rang. His father folded his napkin carefully, ignoring his mother's warning glare as he slowly went to take the call. He closed the door to the hallway behind himself, leaving the party in embarrassed and confused silence for a moment. He took mercy in his mother and restarted the chatter by offering more wine to the people next to him. He had a rather good idea of what that call was but he had believed his father to have enough decency to not take her calls during Christmas dinner. As if it hadn't been enough of a shock to the delicate texture of their family relations when his mother had opened the door one morning to face a young man that looked just like her sons but wasn't. The reconnection that had taken place between his father and the mother of that young man had been a little too intense for his taste. He had begun to think of that third brother as his own evil twin in some ways and objected to any contact his father tried to spark up between them. 

He wore the usual, innocent and friendly face when he took his place at their table again cheerily joining an ongoing conversation at random. Mycroft at least caught a glimmer of guilt when he gave his father an inquisitive stare but it wouldn't last long and was quickly washed away by one of his radiant smiles.

 

He was lying on the sofa thumbing through an edition of Dickens when the phone disturbed their festive silence a second time. His mother's stature stiffened before the first ring had evaporated completely in the stuffy air filled with chimney smoke. He rested the book on his chest andd closed his eyes. It took Bernhard longer than usual to pick up, he hadn't expected the call. The door stayed open, it wasn't her then. The first few syllables he overeard brought him to his feet, his and mother's eyes connecting instantly. 

"Thank you Mr. Lestrade. We'll be there in about an hour."

It didn't take any words between them. They all got dressed with forcefully calmed efficiency getting into the car in silence. The car was halfway out of the village when his mother finally asked for clarification.

"Bad?"

"Overdose. They don't know of what exactly. He seems to have gotten himself quite a cocktail there."

The knuckles of his mother's hand whitened as they gripped the handle of the bag containing some clothes for Sherlock harder. It was one of Mycroft's pyjamas and underwear. All he had left behind at the house his mother had given away to neighbours and charity some year ago. The cupboards and closet in Sherlock's old room were now filled with fabric she used for her sewing. The sewing machine was on his old desk, covering most of the burn marks an exploding bunsen had once left there. Mycroft knew exactly, he had spent the blue hours of dusk there, his hand on one of the black, gangrenous spots staring into the garden, waiting for nothing.

Bright windows flashed past as they neared the next village. It was in the middle of the night in New York. Timothy's hair smelled of lemon and mint, the flat of his mother's perfume he assumed. Maybe he was wearing the new pyjama he had given him after spilling coffee over the one he had borrowed. Maybe he was naked. Maybe he wasn't sleeping but thinking of him as well. He hoped they would find Sherlock sleeping.

 

"Tell me about your family." She had her hand ready to write on the notepad, giving him an interested but professional look. Mycroft kept his eyes on the park in the window behind her. How it would help his brother if he talked about their private life to a woman this obviously clueless was a mystery to him. He had agreed to talk to Sherlock's therapist because his mother had been crying and that was his one weak spot. With a sigh he came back and looked straight into her face.

"Wouldn't it be a little simple to blame my brother's problems on my parents? For what you are charging by the hour I expected something more...creative?"

She wore her hair short and her clothing was unoppressive but smart. The pen clicked when she tapped it onto the notepad, standing up to his attack with silence.

"I was curious to meet you, your brother mentions you in every other sentence."

"So it's my fault then?" He couldn't swallow down an icy smile. His heart was pounding hard again. It did that a lot lately. 

"Why are you so interested in placing the guilt?" 

"I'm not here to play your little games. Ask me a proper question and you will receive a proper answer."

It was her turn to smile and shake her head a little.

 


	18. Family Crisis

Mycroft woke with one loud shout, sitting in bed upright, his heart pounding as if he had been running for his life. And in his dream he had been. He exhaled a long breath and dropped into the cushions again. In his dream he had set up an exploding device of some sort in his paternal house, started it and begun to run. Down the garden, through the gate, down the street, all the way until he reached the main road. There he had stopped, waiting for the explosion to happen with something of relief flodding him. Until he suddenly realised he wouldn't be able to go back once the bomb exploded and the relief was replaced with horrible regret and he screamed as he ran back, facing the incredible heat streaming from the already burning house. He sat for a few moments more before his feet began searching for his slippers under the bed. He slipped on his dressing gown and wandered into his father's study. Everything was empty, his mother had taken at least two sleeping pills the moment they had returned from the clinic the first time and had kept up the dose pretty much all week. He understood but couldn't help but disapprove of so much weakness when obviously determination and management of the situation were needed. 

He dropped in the cold leather chair glancing over his list of calls still to be made to arrange for Sherlock's stay at the clinic. The moment his mother had collapsed at the sight her son's white face and abused body, he had known there was no way for him to leave Sherlock alone again. He would never lose him again, he had sworn to the unconscious brow he had kissed in a solitary moment of unforgiveable sentimentality. The driver was up already, scratching the thin layer of ice from the windows of the car, getting ready to take him back to the clinic, a quickly established, daily routine.

 

Sherlock lingered at the gate, or as close as he was allowed to get to it, waiting for the black car to make its appearance in the car park. He then would quickly find a spot to sit and look busy. He knew his brother knew he waited for him but there were rules to this game that weren't easily broken.

They hardly talked, his fault more than Mycroft's he knew, but what could he have said? His therapist certainly had a whole list of things he could have talked about to Mycroft but that woman was simply annoyingly stupid, one of the few things he and Mycroft agreed on.

Mycroft's slim figure appeared over the peak of the small hill, nodding slightly at him, his queue to roll his eyes annoyed but get up and join him the moment he passed his bench without stopping.

 

"Don't you have to work some time again?"

"Two more weeks. Special leave because of family crisis."

The same greeting every time. The same course, the same pace.

"So I'm officially a crisis now?"

"Aways have been, brother mine."

 

They would shake hands when Mycroft left, in between a short conversation about the state of things at home, the information being hidden more in the silences than in in the words spoken. 

It wasn't until their last walk together that Sherlock broke the routine and told Mycroft about his case with Lestrade. His brother listened unmoved, not the slightest bit of surprise in his face. 

"I have to advise you to keep away from this whole affair." Mycroft toyed with his umbrella, eys firmly fixed on the path.

"Did you listen to what I said? There are people very high and mighty dealing with drugs and I have all the clues to bring them down. Why should I let that go?" Sherlock huffed at the idea.

"Because I have been dealing with the same thing from the other side and I can tell you this is a little bit too big a thing for you to toy with. Just keep away."

"Oh, I see, it's your case so you want me to keep out?"

"I want you to keep safe for once." The timbre in the voice changed.

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"Sherlock, there are people involved in this that are too big to be arrested. We will deal with those we can hold responsible."

Sherlock's pace quickened. He crossed his arms in front of his chest just to find it unsatisfactory a gesture. 

"You will let them get away with it? Are you out of your mind?"

"There are bigger things at stake here Sherlock, than just your hurt sense of justice!" Mycroft stopped, blocking his way. 

"Like what?"

"One has to keep the system running smoothly. Even if that sometimes means tolerating misbehaviour of some that are too important to be persecuted."

Sherlock stared into his brother's face. He was tired and worn. He was cold and determined.

"You disgust me." There wasn't more of a reaction than a small twitch in his left eye. He waited another moment for some other reaction, then turned and left him there in the park, the man who was his brother and had turned into something too similar of his father.

 


	19. A Blue Scarf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't read if you wish to remain in a post-Christmassy, festive mood. You've been warned :-)

There was one more call Mycroft had to make before leaving this whole mess behind again, at least geographically. He made the car pull up in front of the sadly neglected appartment building at a time he knew Victor would be leaving the house. The young man noticed him immediatly and it showed on his face he wasn't sure what to make of his visitor. Mycroft slowly got out of the car, a move he had practised for a while now, it gave him time to recollect his act, after all it was mostly acting really what he did when confronting the normal, the mortals as Timothy sometimes called them with a grin only half serious. It also gave his audience the chance to get into a state of heightened anticipation and fearful confusion, a state of mind that helped him make his point understood most of the time. Those first times he had confronted others with a demand or threat, an offer they were unlikely to turn down, he had been nervous, his voice close to getting out of hand sometimes. By now no such thing was the case any more. Ever since he had given up the binary system of good and bad for a theory that included an infinite shades of greys, his job made him shift along the scale but wouldn't let him care about the judgment of others any more. After all, they didn't understand, even Sherlock couldn't see the point in doing things considered evil by simpler minds for the greater good. On his brother's scale, Mycroft had apparently shifted into the darkest areas of black while on his personal scale todays proceedings pushed him into an area of grey close to the colour of the melting snow on London's pavements.

There was no talking, he simply gestured at the door meekly, and Victor sheepishly obliged, reopening the door and climbing the stairs up again to the rythm of Mycroft's umbrella as he tapped it against each of the steps.

The place looked cleaner than he had anticipated but maybe that was owed to his brother's long absence from it.

"Is he...?" The young man swallowed the rest of his question as Mycroft carefully positioned himself in the middle of the living room, taking in his surroundings with one quick glance.

"No, he got close, but no. He...it's taken care of." He smoothed down his vest, suddenly feeling selfconscious. That the boy would show interest in Sherlock's well-being didn't make easier what had to be done.

"Victor, I'm here to pack what remains of Sherlock's belongings. He won't come back here. Of course I'm willing to pay his share of the rent until you found a suitable...substitute."

"He wants to move out? Like completely?" Victor stumbled a little before he crushed into the couch and was forced to sit down by the compassion of gravity.

"Would you show me to his room please?" He nodded when he was pointed to a door opposite but didn't wait for Victor to lead the way. The room was mostly empty, he packed those clothes that seemed still wearable into a black bag he had brought, neatly folded in his briefcase. He spotted a box near the door, inspected it and found it suitable to pack those few books that were scattered around the place. The violin went into its case, he gave the scribble of a half finished piece a quick look. Simply reading the notes made him flinch, it was a shrieking thing without proper rhythm or melody. He folded it nevertheless and put into the front of one of the books before dropping it into the box.

"Can I, like, maybe call him?" Mycroft turned from emptying the drawers of the desk, looking into the slightly reddened face in the door. 

"I don't think it would be helpful if you did. Indeed, I will ask you to refrain from any further contact with my brother. For the sake of both of you." He made sure the hint of a threat in it was clearly audible, even to a mind clouded by grief and despair. "Your influence on him has been..." He pulled out the pause to signify he was looking for a euphemism "detrimental and derogatory."

"Did he say so? Did he say it was my fault?" The voice was thick with tears now, he better got out of here before the anger would win over the shock.

"As I said, I'll make sure you won't experience any inconvenience because of the situation." Mycroft shouldered the bag, grabbed the box and balanced the violin on top. Victor held the door open for him and dropped a blue scarf onto the luggage wordlessly. Mycroft attempted a smile before slowly balancing his way down the stairs the umbrella safely hooked onto his right arm, briefcase tugged under the other. Halfway down the first staircase he could still hear someone sobbing into a phone. Or maybe it was just an illusion produced in his subconscious.

 

Sherlock never touched the box or the bag when they were delivered to his room, he just watched them from his usual spot near the window, rain washing away the last remains of snow outside. His brother had attached a simple note, no greeting, no ornamental politeness. "Victor will be needing the second room soon. I thought you might would like these things back." He was sure they would encourage him to take up the violin again but even the idea of music offending the silence that surrounded his numb brain made him shiver with disgust. There was no point in feeling, the sooner he stopped it, the better. By the time the nurse made her final round for the day he hadn't moved. She gave him a speech about how he was supposed to eat on a regular basis as she reclaimed the untouched tray, it washed through him without leaving any information behind. Like the sound of waves disappears from the conscious after a few hours on the beach. He watched the night crawl up the hill and by the time he made it into his bed, the moon had already started to decline again. He eventually grabbed the scarf from the box, and wrapped it tightly around his hand. It was Victor's favourite piece, he would have to give it back some time, soon. They once had walked all the way back through town in search of the hideous thing after Victor had left it in the library somewhere. Mycroft probably had packed it by accident, maybe it had still been in his room. He had nicked it from the hallstand several times when Victor was out to wrap it round his eyes when he wanted to sleep but couldn't. He would have to give it back, until then he would bury his nose in it to blend out the smell of disinfectant and hospital at least for a while.

 


	20. Three Types of Silence

"They found him, brain smashed out and shot as well, just for the good measure I guess." Greg gave the surroundings an uneasy look. And Sherlock understood the feeling. The visiting room was made up to look welcoming, happy and calm. Unnervingly so. Whoever came here could hardly be expected to perceive any of these emotional options as genuine. Not the spouses trying to tred carefully around the pitfalls in the conversation with the wound up drug addicts they once loved, not the children forced to visit parents who were trying to get of the alcohol. Not friendly police officers who visited the guy that had deliberatly given himself an overdose in their living room just because it was Christmas.

He motioned at Greg to hand him the files and glanced over them, the information soothing to his brain like fresh air in an overheated room.

"Did both causes of death happen within temporal proximity?"

"Uhm, I dunno, the report doesn't say anything about that."

"Whoever did the forensics, have him sacked. He was shot and then someone else came along and took the opportunity to release his anger about that guy, though he was already dead."

"Who would do such a thing, I mean you really would have to hate someone to...well, to a dead body!"

"Yep, you're looking for someone with a probably lifelong hateful connection to the victim. Does he have a brother?" Greg frowned at the icy grin that had accompanied the remark.

"He's been in the news. Your brother, I mean. He seems to have taken up you cues on that whole Brazil affair. They arrested a couple of people, pretty well known people. It's good to see that it's not always just the little ones we get hold of." Greg recollected the file and jumped slightly at Sherlock's responding huff. 

They sat in silence for a while, taking note of all the other little tragedies around them. Sherlock felt like he was supposed to say something, apologize, that sort of thing. In his mind he could see his therapist ruffling her hair in desperation at his inability to make himself understood. 

"I uhm, I dunno what the policy of this place is towards bringing you other stuff to have a look at but I guess I would really like your opinion on some other stuff."

"Well, just don't tell them." Even though he kept his eyes passing Greg's face he could read from his movements what was going through the man's head. He was afraid of harming him but also afraid to desert him in this godforsaken place.

"You actually look a little better, I think you gained a little weight." Sherlock flinched at the remark. Not because it would make him throw up as soon as he got back to his room like that girl next door, he wasn't one of those but because of all the uncontrollable sentiment it conveyed. How was he supposed to deal with Greg's worry for him.

 

"Greg, don't feel obliged to come here, it's not like anyone else does, my parents or such." As soon as he had spoken it, he hated himself for it. Talking about producing emotional obligation on someone.

"The nurse said you told them to piss off the last time they came. I could understand if they felt...hesitant about calling on you now."

"Had a bad day." He curled his legs up so his chin rested on his knees, eyes still fixed on the windows, arms flung around his legs. They fell silent again until it was time for dinner. The nurse that came up to their table was smiling at Greg, a new one, not yet accomplished in the subtle, behavioural code of this setting. Sherlock simply nodded at Greg as he shuffled away, getting sucked into the crowd leaving for the dining hall. The mass of people slowly parted, into those who were gathered back for another item on the hospital agenda and those who put on their coats and scarf to face the grey mess they called the real world.

 

On the other side of the Atlantic Mycroft also stared out of a window, icy silence surrounding him. Timothy had just explained to the therapist why he thought it neccessary for Mycroft to consult him. The man looked very understanding, nodding just the right amount of times as he listened to the litany of all of Mycroft's misdoings.

"Mr Holmes, do you understand your partners concern about your reaction in those emotionally intense moments?" He was to be called by his last name, Mycroft had made that very clear the moment he had been forcefully dragged into this room. He would not fraternise with this dodderer who believed to understand anything about what was going on.

"I know I'm supposed to say I do, but sorry, no." He hated that the truth made him sound so much like a stubborn child.

"So, you don't see anything wrong in the fact that you smashed a dozen of plates after your last meeting with your supervisor. That you ran around the streets until you were unable to breathe then returned home, yelled at the television for an entire hour?" Mycroft wondered why Timothy had forgotten to mention the bathroom tile that had split under the force of the brass figurine he had slammed into it.

"It were nine."

"Right, nine plates. So that seems to you like an appropriate coping strategy for when you get under professional pressure? What is your line of work again?" He flipped through his notes while Timothy was shifting next to him uneasily.

"So you earn your money asking rhetorical questions?" Mycroft drummed his fingers onto the armrest of the couch.

"Myc, you can't go on like this. If you can't talk to me, well, just talk to him at least."

"When will you finally stop nagging me about this fucking talking? It's not how it works! I'm not a talk person!" His voice actually resonated in some ornamental glass pieces on display in the halfshade of the backroom. He enjoyed the split second of silence that followed his outbreak but only until it produced a sudden flash of memory of the darkened hallway at his parents house and Sherlock's tiny hand in his, trembling.

The therapist cleared his voice, the writing became more determined. "How about next Thursday at three?"

 

That night he lay awake, his heart drumming in his ears once more. It probably would be easier to explain what happened, but he couldn't get himself to whine to the man breathing shallowly next to him about the state of the world. He had been summoned once more and been given a speech that he wasn't to pursue any of the traces from the Brazil incident any longer. That he never had had the right to get involved in the first place, that he certainly wasn't in any position to decide who was to be persecuted any further.

"Mr Holmes I would regret it deeply if this whole incident would get in the way of your further professional advancement. You owe it to your father's name that I was able to keep you and your...friend from any internal investigation."

"Keep Timothy out of this. This was completely my idea and I misused his eotional attachment to me convince him to play along." She had nodded and scribbled something into Timothy's personal file, signing to him he was dismissed.

The disgust his brother felt for him weighed somehow more heavy than he had assumed it would. It haunted him in his sleep, together with his father's voice. This weren't things you could talk about, not if you wanted to be taken seriously. So this episode of his life was to go the way of all things, he had already handed in his papers for that position in London, had browsed the odd real estate catalogue. Talking was just not an option.


	21. Loneliness

Surprising Mycroft had never been easy and so he sort of forced his face to show some of his disappointment when walking into Timothy's living room to find remains of someone else's aftershave in the air. He wasn't surprised but felt that one was expected to react to this kind of situation with some kind of emotional hurt. The conversation was short as he refused to enter into another round of the endlessly repeated conversation of why he was impossible to be with, why talking was somehow essential and paramount to the continuation of their involvement. He fought an instinct to cross the space between them and kiss him as he had done that night when the topic had lurked up the first time. But that was probably quite inappropriate. So he just smoothed down his vest and returned to his car. On the way out he ran into a young man he believed to have met at work before, their eyes met and he nodded at him, suddenly too tired to take a stand. He seemed intimidated anyway and somehow he even felt a weird kind of smpathy for him and Timothy.

That night he called his mother who reacted quite alarmed to the weird behaviour and so he never got round to share the burden of his mind but listened to her chatter about this and that. The call hadn't produced the desired calming effect and he went through his options of people he might call, eventually ending with Greg on his mind. His face was burning with embarassment as he dialled the number, being quite conscious of the inadequate level of conectedness between them to justify such a call and so he disconnected the line before Greg had picked up. Darkness was closing in around him as he became aware that he felt alone. A feeling he had never been bothered by before this whole affair, now it crept up his bones like a poisonous vapour from the marshes. When he felt like that fog had reached his face, when breathing became harder and his lungs began to rattle with surpressed sobs, the phone in his hand rang.

"Hey, you hung up before I had a chance to make it to the phone." Greg seemed out of breath and Mycroft was skinned for an answer.

"Ah, Lestrade, I 'm sorry I just misdialled. I hope I didn't disturb your evening."

"Oh, right. Well, I kind of jumped out of the shower to get to the phone so...how are you?"

"Uhm, I'm sorry, I just,... well."

"Still going up in the world I guess, saw you on TV the other night. "

"I' coming back to London next month."

"Really? Does Sherlock know about it?"

"No, I didn't tell anyone yet and my brother and I have not been on speaking terms lately."

"I went to see him last week. He is doing alright I guess." Somehow it felt incredibly comforting to hear Greg talk and so Mycroft kept up the chatter until the tension in his lungs had ceased a little.

"Myc, I know you are insanely busy with your work but how about you gimme me a call when you're back, I'd love to hear how you are doing."

"Oh, well, yes, sure."

 

Then he was back, one foggy, rainy, London morning. The young woman of the moving company he had chartered swirled through the rooms, ignoring him a little too obviously. He considered it for a second but wasn't interested, really not. His brain felt as empty as the grey sky above his new garden. Whatever he would need that for. His new office had sent someone to install a lot of security, he had anticipated this kind of things would be included in his change of career which seemed the logical step. He had found life at the embassy dull, the people mostly boring. When he was approached one day at a cafe, out of the blue, he felt a thrill for the first time since, ever really. It had been a crazy dance of secret meeting points, interrogations and background checks before he found himself in a room without windows, sitting an exam once more. Contentwise it wasn't more than a change of method, a change towards methods he had used anyway but could do so now if not openly, then at least approved by is superiors. He hadn't told anyone, and probably wouldn't. With regard to Sherlock's moral scale, black probably was no longer enough to describe his position. With regard to his own he couldn't be bothered to figure it out, there was too much promise of excitement in the whole endeveour.

 

That night he decided to go out to celebrate the victory he couldn't tell anyone about. After dinner at his father's club, because he kind of shied away from going to a restaurant alone, he found himself wandering along the streets, focussing hard on not thinking about Timothy. He wondered if other people always felt this empty, if having more social contact made up for the pain it eventually caused. If they maybe just cared less, felt it less intensely. He avoided any routes that would lead him over bridges. Just a measure of safety. 

 

The trip to the clinic soon became his Friday routine before meeting his friends for a beer and football at the pub. Most of the visits were silence or witty insults but he had come to feel comfortable with it. He had grown fond of the boy, too fond to be labelled as friendship as his latest conquest had remarked the other night. He had never seen himself asthe fatherly type but then Sherlock wasn't childish. When he thought about it, it was the other Holmes boy he was worried about. The seemingly purposeless call had set him wondering and he remembered the serious, worried young man that had come to his office to look for his brother, on whom Sherlock had always relied. And suddenly he realized it had to be a very lonely existence, always being the one who others relied on. So he found himself calling Mycroft's number in the middle of the night.

 


	22. Hallway meeting

"Wasn't expecting you."  
"Then your brain has deteriorated more in here than I expected."  
His brother hadn't even taken off the coat. He just sat there in the chair, close to the door as if he expected that he would have to make a swift exit. He studied Mycroft's face, he hadn't seen it in a while. He avoided his eyes, gave his room a dismissive look.  
"What do you want?"  
"Visit my favourite brother?" Sherlock huffed and turned to face the wall lying on his bed. He was barefoot and wore his favourite gown. He no longer saw a reason to get dressed when he wasn't forced to leave the room by the doctors or nurses.   
"I'm back in town, just thought I'd drop by."  
"Duly noted, now get lost."  
"Any plans yet for the big day? Like where you will live, what to do with the resto of your life?"  
"Not your business, is it?"  
"Right. I'm pleased to find you as unpleasant a company as always."  
"I'd be pleased to find myself without your company."  
"I shall be here to pick you up next week?"  
"Already arranged for someone to pick me up."  
"I guess you will leave to me to find out who it is?"  
He showed his brother his teeth and waved gingerly towards the door. 

The two men met in the hallway, Mycroft noticing the officerl ong before he recognized the older Holmes. He beamed a bright smile at Mycroft, pulling the very hesitant man into a hug.   
"So how is the annoying git today?"  
"Pleasant as always." Mycroft buriedh is hands in the pockets of his coat, the shame about the unanswered call burning on his brain.  
"I got your message, I was just very preoccupied with my new... well they kept me rather busy. I intended to get back to you..."  
"No worries, Mr Holmes, hought you might be. Where is it you are working now exactly?"  
"Just a minor position, foreign ministry." He cleared his throat and checked the hallway for any onlistneners but they were alone.  
"Good for you. So, just before you get buried completely in your work give me a call. We could have like dinner or watch a match or something."  
"I don't really follow football."  
"Ha, well I should have guessed so." Greg laughed and threw back his head. "Your brother would scold me, he'd deduce it from the brand of your shoes."  
"More likely my tie. He specializes in tie reading." Mycroft blushed when his comment produced another laugh from Greg.   
"I better not keep your majesty waiting. Got a case I wnat him to look at, better keep him in a good mood."  
Greg padded his shoulder and waved back at him as he walking own the hallway.  
"Greg? Thank you for keeping an eye on him and thanks for picking him up next week."  
"My pleasure!"


	23. Mycroft Watches Football

He had the car waiting around the corner, he had no idea what this evening would turn out to be. Greg had given him detailed instructions where to wait for him, but all there was around was a greasy pub and a take away place. He was hoping he wouldn't be asked to enter either. It had been a long struggle until he had gotten himself convinced that he owed Greg a meeting after all he had done for Sherlock. Greg had convinced Sherlock to accept the flat Mycroft had found for him, only yards away from the officer's flat. He had promised to keep him updated on the life his brother was so reluctant to share. This meeting was certainly not about his unlogical wish to build any kind of connection with the officer. He had much more important things to do, more important people to befriend. And still, here he was, standing at some street corner, his legs tingling with nerves. And then his figure separated itself from the crowd. He had thrown a leather jacket over his work gear, there had only been time to redo his hair, no time to get changed. He simply nodded when Greg waved at him.

"Hope you are hungry." He padded his shoulder again, then steered him towards the pub. Mycroft's heart sank, he secretly pulled the sleeve of his coat over his hand before touching the handle of the door. Greg didn't notice, he was too busy greeting people inside. He seemed to be a regular.

"Whatever you have." He would avoid touching that menue under all circumstances. Greg shrugged and waved at someone behind the counter. 

"Tell me how you've been. What brings you back to London?"

"I grew a little bored of the work they had on offer over there."

"Sherlock thinks you came back to keep annoying him through constant presence."

"He always had a tendency towards selfcenteredness."

"Your parents must be glad to have you back here."

Mycroft stared into his mushed peas. 

"Don't tell me they don't know." Greg dropped his fork into his plate to tear a slice of bread into pieces.

There was a heavy silence during which Greg studied him. He could feel his eyes wandering over him. He finally spoke, through the last bites of his meal.

"I don't get it. He should be bursting with pride. I mean you must be good at what you do to land a job at the ministry."

"It's just a minor position. Nothing to get excited about."

Greg convinced him to have a pint, and he had him explain the game to him that was going on at a screen above the bar. It was intriguing to watch the enthusiasm it enticed in him. He nodded and duefuly repeated the rules as Greg quizzed him. He even laughed at the inane jokes, not because he found them funny but because somehow they made him feel good. Greg made him feel good.

His head felt comfortably dizzy when he stepped back into the fresh air. Greg offered him a cigarette which he accepted but wouldn't light, he feared he would embarrass himself by coughing. But Greg was too busy talking to notice anyway. Mycroft was content to listen and smile, nod in the right moment. Suddenly Greg strted to walk closer to him, so charmingly wrapped up in the conversation it was mostly up to him to keep up.

"Do you see that car there? I think they have been following us for a while now." Greg grabbed his arm, slightly nodding towards the black car.

Mycroft smiled at the hand on his arm, carefully shving his hands into the pockets of his coat. "That's mine. Would you like me to drop you off at home?"

"Not so minor that position as you make it sound, is it?" Greg slowly walked around the vehicle, waving at the driver who ignored him.

"Matter of perspective." Mycroft muttered, holding the door open for the officer.

 

They rode in silence until he noticed Greg was probably uncomfortable about it. He noticed from the way the man held on to his own fingers.

"God, I should have called, Linda is probably worried, she hates when I forget to call." Greg chuckled nervously. The kind of laugh that made it obvious he had felt obliged to drop the name at some point. Apparently he had grown unsure about what he exact nature of this meeting had been, probably owed to the offer of a ride home. 

"Well, pass on my sincere apologies, I shouldn't have kept you so long."

"No, God, no, I mean I really enjoyed, I mean it was my idea..."

The car mercifully stopped in front of the entrance to the appartment block. Mycroft smiled: "Keep me updated on my brother, will you?"

"Sure, of course." Greg stumbled and almost hit his head on the car's door as he tried to get out backwards, still facing Mycroft."

"It's not like we, she and I, like live together, you know." He was now hanging in the frame of the door, both arms on the roof of the car.

"I kind of assumed that from the fact that you need to call her." Mycroft chuckled and Greg flushed slightly, only parts of his face visible in the dimmed light of the car.

"Yeah, well, you really are your brother's brother and I'm just...not." Greg rolled his eyes as the word stumbled out of his mouth. "I really should stop talking right now."

"Good night Gregory." Mycroft sounded slightly amused but sincere.

"Good night Myc and I dunno, talk soon or something." The door closed with a muffled thud and Mycroft felt alone instantly, thinking about Timothy's smile.


	24. Going in Circles

There were two rules Greg had insisted on: be on time and don't be high. The second one seemed to be of more importance than the first one. But he tried to stick to both. They usually met at the crime scene, Greg letting him in more or less discretely. Those days that were filled with work were the bright ones. But as soon as he was without something to occupy his mind, the mood begand dwindling down into depths he hadn't anticipated they existed. He had tried to fill them with experiments but they only held his interest for a limited time. Greg had suggested he should go out and meet people, find imself a hobby that wouldn't involve hiding in the flat for hours. That's how he had ended up at a lecture on forensic science open to the public. Not that he had joined any of the groups of listeners that flocked together afterwards in the lobby to discuss what had been said, neither reacted he to the shy invitation the elderly lady in the seat next to him had brought forward. Something about a bookclub. His heart however, was thumbing heart and his brain filled with endorphines as ideas began swirling up in it like leaves in a autumn storm.

The next three days were filled comfortably. Until he was kicked out of the bookshop for reading all the books but not buying any. "We're not a library!" the owner had yelled at him while dragging him out the door by his coat. He had similarity with a fat pig, his fat, red face further deformed by his anger. Sherlock told him so which earned him the threat of eing reported to the police.

The streets invariably took him closer and closer to the area around Victor's flat, he was slowly tting closer in circles, like a leave dancing on the waves of a stream, slowly getting closer to the drain in the middle. On the fourth day he found his finger touching the doorbell. His name had been erased carelessly, the letters still shining through the white. There was no answer. It took him long to realize that Victor probably was out at this time of day, working, like normal people did. He nevertheless rang again somehow feeling obliged to do so. For a moment he thought about leaving the scarf on the doorknob, but then it was windy and he felt hesitant to part with it. So he wandered back, strangely sobered of the high the fight with the piggy shopowner had left him feeling.

 

"Is there a way I could get to use the library at St. Barts?"

Greg pondered the question for a moment, looking for the trap he inadvertly would step into once he opened his mouth. "Why?"

"Research."

"And what would you be researching?"

"Your cases." Sherlock dumped the rest of his chips on Greg's plate who frowned but accepted them, pouring another serving of vinegar over them. The chippy was almost empty, no one but police and workers on their way back from nightshift would have lunch at nine am.

"I'll look into it." Greg soaked up the rest of sauce with the chips. "Going home?"

Sherlock shrugged. He didn't care much about getting back to the flat. On many of those days they came back this late, or early, he ended up sleeping on Greg's couch or staring at his ceiling while Greg was snoring in one of his armchairs. But the officers relationship with Linda was once more at a stage where she would begin criticising about his extraordinary arrangements with Sherlock who never failed to irritate his girlfriends. Sherlock usually held no opinion on them, though Greg often tried to get him to deduce them. He had done it once which had resulted in a very angry young woman on his doorstep swearing at him in the most unsuitable manner.

"I'll drop you there then." Greg gave his half finished plate a worried look, then a stern one at his face.

"I had some of Sally's birthday cake last night." It was a lie, he never would touch anything cooked by someone with such a promiscuous lifestyle. It seeed to do the trick on Greg though.

 

The next morning he found an envelope in his letterbox with his brother's handwriting on it. Have fun, nothing else. Inside an ID for the library at Bart's. It was just the last puzzle piece to verify his suspicion that Greg and Mycroft kept close contact and he was under no illusion what the main topic of talk between them was. When Greg called that afternoon, it took Sherlock's entire will power not to answer. Instead he once more picked up the scarf and began his slow routine of circles that would bring him to Victor's street. 

 


	25. All kinds of relations

It wasn't true that he never formed any kind of relation with people. When he saw the point, he was rather good at winning peoples' sympathy. It was as simple as turning on the light, he turned the switch and could be sociable and charming, even attractive. This was how he got into contact with Molly Hooper. The girl never stood a chance. He had spent a few moments reading her insecurities and working out what it was she needed before he approached her as she struggled with the coffee machine in the lobby of Bart's, overly aware of being watched. He leaned over, close enough to make her blush, not close enough to be entirely deliberate. When his hand went through his curls and he smiled up at her from where he knelt, trying to fix the machine, her eyes told her she was beyond help. She trodded after him like a duckling after its mother as he charmed his way into her laboratory, had her explain the tools and show the premises. He didn't see it as something amoral, she was shy and lonely and relished in the idea that the handsome, slightly arrogant stranger had chosen her as a companion. It brought a thrill to her no doubt lonely and boring life. He on the other hand was finally able to access all the things he would need to bring his work for Greg onto a more scientific basis. Which meant that Greg profited from all this as well. A winning situation all round, he thought, a smug smile on his face which confused the poor girl so badly, she stumbled over the bucket she had used to mop up the blood of the victim Sherlock had rather clumsily cut open.

"So you work for Detective Lestrade?"

"Yes. Hold this." He dropped the dissected testicle in her hand, not taking his eyes of the microscope. She patiently held it out to him while staring at his face, cheeks reddened, mouth open.

"But you are not police?"

"No. Do you have any fresh sperm of this guy left?" There was no answer for a moment while she was looking around herself slightly confused.

"No. I....I didn't think it would be important."

"Well, you hardly seem to think at all. Can you procure me a sample from a similar corpse?" She hurried off to check her books. 

"I mean if you work with Lestrade but aren't police, what exactly is your job then?" The question made him look up because it was one he had no dismissive answer to, or any really. He stared at the line of metal fridges on the wall opposite.

"I'm a freelancer, so to say, selfemployed. I consult."

"So, you are a consulting detective?" Her voice was high and shrieking as he fixed his eyes on her pondering her question. He finally cleared his throat and threw her a smile.

"Yes, quite right, I'm a consulting detective. The only one."

 

Mycroft watched from the corner of his eye as Sherlock entered the building of Bart's on the side of the young woman. Even the grained black and white picture of CCTV made it obvious his brother looked better. His cheeks were less hollow, his posture had regained some of its natural grace which he had envied since his teens. With his brother well under control, it felt easier to go. He didn't know how long he would be gone, things were hardly plannable in the position he found himself in now. He would give his good-byes this afternoon, to him and to mummy. Officially he would be gone for a month, there was no point in getting anyone excited about what was not to be known or changed anyway.

They lingered at a street corner, his mother tutting over Sherlock who rolled his eyes at something she said. He kissed his mother's cheek and nodded at Sherlock before dictating a rather fast pace for all of them to get into the cafe. He had finished his second piece of pie by the time Sherlock was done scraping the icing of his. Mother didn't notice or ignored it, there was no point in starting a discussion about his eating habits in public. All he wanted was a few peaceful memories of the two of them to take with him.

"How was dad able to avoid this gathering?" Sherlock had begun peeling the cake into tiny crumbs by beating it with his fork like an axe.

"Where will you be staying, Mycroft?" His mother kept avoiding Sherlock's inquisitive stare.

"Embassy, mostly."

"Uh, avoiding the question? Is it my presence that keeps him away or is he working again all too hard to meet his sons?"

"Sherlock, we are trying to see your brother off in peace here, could you just stop the nagging for an hour?" It wasn't at all like here to react this aggressive to what was only a minor provocation from Sherlock. Something was definetly more off than usual. Mycroft straightenend his back and studied her face that was growing older every time he saw her.

"Not you as well, Mycroft! Everything is fine."

Sherlock huffed, the cake now diminished into a mush of atoms. "Yes, everything is fine and Mycroft is staying at an embassy. If I had known we come here to lie into each others faces, I would have brought some prepared lies as well."

"Stop it!" Mycroft hissed, knowing very well it was too late.

"What do you mean, he is not...Mycroft!" She grew anxious and slightly angry as realization hit her.

"It is nothing to worry about. Just some minor negotiations."

"Where?"

"North Korea." Sherlock answered for him with his widest grin. "Now, before you tell him off for lying to you, shouldn't you also confess to him? I mean about you seeing a lawyer to file for divorce?" Sherlock leaned back and watched them looking at each other like they had both never seen each other before. This was bliss. Once it wasn't him who caused all the pain. He had the need to tear it all to shreds, this whole sharade of a family.

 

"Why now?" Mycroft tried to keep his face straight. He wouldn't pick sides. He never had. And he wouldn't grant Sherlock the satisfaction of showing how badly it hit him. It felt like personal defeat. He had tried to keep it all together, given all his strength to the cause as a child. Smoothing whatever could cause annoyance between them, hiding all the small matters that would cause disruption. Only to find them drift apart now that he went away, unable to fix it. He finished his tea in one big gulp, it burnt hot down his throat. 

 


	26. Something Valuable

He walked behind them on the way to Sherlock's flat, their mother had insisted on seeing it. He hoped Sherlock had found the time to at least superficially clean up the remains of his last experiments that lately involved mostly material provided by that mousey girl that kept popping up on his CCTV. As usual his brother was sure to disappoint. In the middle of the dining table there was the right foot of a man, cut open to show of the veins, the flesh pierced with pins.

"You're drawing again." he stated, running his fingers over the exquisite lines of the anatomical drawing that lay crumpled between the clatter of books.

"How long am I to be freed from your surveillance?" Sherlock answered, dropping a camera in the bag of Mycroft's coat, the one he had hid in the kitchen sink.

"About a month." Mycroft answered, checking for the other camera attached to the lamp shade over the table.

"and you'll leave it to me to deliver the news to Greg, I assume? He is getting rather annoying with his what he believes to be subtle questions of why you never called him."

A yell from the bathroom saved him from an answer. 

"Don't touch it, it's probably acid!" 

 

"Does he still hold contact with that nice young man, what was his name again?" Mycroft helped her into her coat outside the flat, the dissolving eyeball in the tub had caused an urge to leave in their mother.

"Victor."

"Yes, that's him. Do you know anything about him?"

"He apparently has been offered a very good position as a photographer for the Times. Mostly outside the country, I'm afraid."

"You certainly don't look like it. Do you have anything to do with it?" He couldn't help but show a little smile as she put her arms at her hips, glaring up at him.

"I just showed some of his pictures to the right people. Wouldn't stop an aspiring artist from fulfilling his potential just to keep your son a playmate, would you?"

"I know better than asking for your real reasons." She sighed as he gently pushed her along the street towards his house. "I still think he loved him though."

"He deserves better. That boy was weak and couldn't handle him for more than say a year. It was best to terminate the thing before... it was a catastrophe waiting to happen. We were lucky Greg was there when..." he stopped himself when he noticed that anger began to show itself in his voice.

He was content when she smiled with recognition looking at the desk he had taken with him from the house. She slipped off her shoes and went into his kitchen, beginning to run the kettle wordlessly. The cups were the same they had used at home when he had been younger. It had been a complicated mission to trace them down as they were out of production. He watched the familiar movements, weighing his words. Finally he settled for the simplest of approaches: "Why?"

She sliced a lemon with particular precision, placing a slice on each of the saucers.

" Your father and I always have had our up and downs."

"Of which I am aware." He crossed his arms, watching her putting the teabags into the cups.

"Well, this time he has taken it a bit too far to be tolerated. He has quit his job and decided he will spend some time with his son and his mother in particular."

There was a long stretch of silence. His mind raced through all the things he could say to defend him just as he would defend her once he got hold of his father. But there wasn't much to be offfered in his favour, really.

"Sherlock was exaggerating. I just went to see Michael to...look at possible options. With regard to the house...finances. In case he makes a decision." She handed him the cup and he turned to take her to his living room. He suddenly missed finding his mother annoying. He missed Sherlock's annoying comments, missed his father's uninvolved silence. It was a yearning for something he wasn't even exactly sure it had ever existed or maybe it was a projection of sentiments onto past memories but he felt like he had lost something very valuable.

 


	27. Social Life

That night Sherlock had even more difficulty finding peace. He toyed with the blue scarf, staring at the camera in the lamp shade lying on the living room floor. He wondered who was watching him on the other side now that his brother was gone. He fought an urge to wave and more indecent actions but somehow it wasn't as much fun when he couldn't imagine Mycroft's face deformed by disgust on the other side of the line.

He finally collected all his strength and got up reaching for the phone. Greg's line was occupied. Boredom was already lurking at the edges of his mind, he estimated he had an hour before it would become unbearable. He dialled the number again just to find it unchanged, got up and started to walk, to where he had no idea yet. 

 

The night was dark and loud, there was no corner of the town where he could find silence. The constant buzz numbed his mind and as long as he kept moving, the voice in his head that tried to remind him of the most potent cure for these feelings was muted out. Sherlock never felt scared or lost, not even in the darkest o alleys, even if he didn't know them at all. Somehow he felt indifferent to the possible danger, he long had accepted that fate would find him some day soon, most likely face down in the gutter of some backstreet. If it would be with a bullet in his body or a needle in his arm, the difference seemed insignificant as the effect would be the same. 

Looking up he suddenly felt the need to get above it all, above the dirt of the street and the valleys of the streets, closer to the sky. As he pondered his options, the clock of Big Ben sent its waves of sounds through the night. A distant call he followed willingly. It was the first of what Mycroft would soon come to call danger nights. The streets and town refused to offer company. His mind wouldn't stop telling him how pointless his whole existence was, thath e was failure all round and it wouldn't make a difference to the world if he took his lastb reath just right here on some roof of some building in London, facing the dark and cloudy sky, lying on his back. He fought through the night, deciding hat if he wouldn't move a bit from where he was, he would not give into the temptation that lurked in the corners of the town's streets, a glowing system of veins running through the body of the city that sometimes was his friend and sometimes his worst enemy. When morning arrived, he stiffly got up and made his way to Greg's who would find him sleeping on his couch once more when he came back from a twenty hour shift.

 

It sounded more fatherly than he had it intended to but Greg felt obliged to remind Sherlock from time to time of that fact that at some point he would have to make a decision about what to do with the rest of his life. A return to Cambridge seemed out of the question, Sherlock even refused to leave the town for cases for more than half a day. It seemed that he city had grown into him, had intermingled itself with all his inner systems, he fed of it like a fungus of the roots of trees.

Sherlock mostly answered with a glaring look, there was little point in mentioning to Greg his sincere conviction that he had little time left, too little to bother with making plans. And so he kept spending the days at the morgue with Molly and the nights at crime scenes with Greg.

"Don't you ever go out, with friends maybe?" Molly had asked him rather exasperated after being ruffly turned down the third time that day.

Sherlock looked up from the man he was about to dismebowel to improve his sketches of the the digesitve system as if pondering the question for a moment.

"No." He cleaned his hands on Molly's tunic to avoid getting blood on his new sketch book. She took a lappet and wiped away a stray dropp he had missed on the back of his hand. It was only when dropping a cut off finger in her cup of tea by accident that he pressed his agreement through closed teeth to accompany her to an event he forgot about the moment he had heard about it.

 

"Why exactly are we here?"

"You promised to behave for at least one hour!" Molly was too happy to pout over his insulting tone. She dragged him behind her into the restaurant towards an offendingly happy crowd. 

You never said I would be obliged to talk to people." he protested as it became evident they were waiting for her. His protest was lost in hugs and kisses as Molly was greeted by the group. All medicals of some sort. Friends from uni. He sighed, hoping at least one of them would have some sort of interesting input on offer. As he quickly scanend the faces, his hopes for that sunk. Neither of them seemed eager to talk medicine tonight, it seemed to be more one of those minglings where you were asked to present all your achievements in life just to have them trampled and sneered at by your friends. Mycroft was rather good at this, Sherlock had seen him do it many times. He usually crushed the other within minutes. "The trick is to find their weakest spot and trmaple on it as long as you can but in a way that looks like you don't do it on purpose." Sherlock had felt like his brother was the only source of wisdom back then. That was before he himself had been subject to such treatment. 

"You know Molly from work then?" The young man looked himself over in the mirror of the men's room.

Sherlock nodded without looking up from his hands drying under the warm stream of air. 

"You suit each other. You don't seem to be much of a talker." His mouth was already open but suddenly it felt too much of an effort to set the man right. His attention was caught by a picture that hung between the two mirrors over the sink. A soldier was leaning down to talk to a young girl with a dog on a leash. It was black and white but looked fairly recent. He searched for an inscription to find out where it was taken but it seemed untitled.

"You like it? I think the black and white is a little overdramatic.There are more in the hallway." Sherlock smiled at him weakly and held the door open for him.

"Sherlock? I um, we are leaving now. Are you coming with us?" Molly wrung her hands, staring at Sherlock who was staring at the wall in front of him at a small article introducing the artist of the photographs. She knew these things happened with him but in front of everybody she kind of felt embarrassed. Suddenly the statue moved. He pushed past her towards the young girl behind the bar. 

"Do you have a card of the artist? I'm interested in his pictures." The girl smiled and nodded as she went off to get one for him. 

"I didn't think you were one interested in photography."

"It's for a case and it's photojournalism." he mumbled into his scarf, carefully stroing the card in his wallet. Then he walked off, without another word he vanished into the night. She called after him but wouldn't dare following him.


	28. Returns

There had been dozens of ideas what it would be like to meet Victor again. Most of them involved Gavin getting severly injured. Some involved Victor being pressed against a wall panting, his pulse racing under Sherlock's grip on his wrist. None of them prepared him for the moment Victor's eyes came to rest on his giving a short spark of fire with recognition. He was taller than he remembered him, his slender frame slightly thickened by muscles he had put on on his arms and stomach. The hair still wavered down and into his eyes, he shook his head slightly to move his fringe out of his sight twice. The whole of his appearance just melted perfectly into the shabby surroundings of his studio in one of the most fashionable artistic neighbourhoods. His voice was soft with surprise and something else, it drove a glowing piece of steel through Sherlock's racing heart. It took him a little too long to realize it was his turn to say something. His wits had been paralyzed by the sudden proximity between them. Victor slowly made his way through the mess of photographs and equipment, carefully wiping some chemical from his hands that had been inked by it. 

"You. I brought your scarf." he slurred, closing his eyes as he noticed it. Victor kept wiping his hands on a greyish piece of cloth before closing most of the space between them. 

"Thank you."

"Myc. He."

"I gave it to him. I hoped you..." Victor shook his fringe once more.

"I'm here."

"So you are, Sherlock." His voice seemed to melt in Sherlock's ears and set his heart pounding once more. It was still the same smile he had encountered when opening his room's door for the first time to that boy who claimed to have come to Cambridge without a single pen. Indeed, he seemed to lack anything that could be remotely of use back then.

Victor took the scarf from his hands which somehow hesitated to part with the garment, looked at it with something like satisfied amusement and folded it over the back of a old wooden chair that leaned at one of the brick walls. One of the neon lights began to flicker and Sherlock watched Victor's face turn into a frown for a second before leading the way towards a small kitchen at the other end of the huge, single room.

"You look..."

"So do you." Sherlock winced as he accidently bit his own tongue answering too quickly. Victor once more answered with a strange smile and turned towards the kettle. They listened as the water began to boil.

"Does your brother know you are here?"

"He is out. And no, why should he?" He spoke louder than he had planned to. In order to avoid any further embarrassment, he dug his nails into his own palms and buried his fists in the depths of his coat's pockets, looking at the tip of his shoes.

"The last time we met I got he impression he isn't too keen on us meeting up ever again." Sherlock chased a dust bunny with his polished shoe, counting his own heartbeat as it drummed in his ears. "He's...jerk."

Victor got into a stool by the counter and produced an ashtray from a cupboard above. It took him two attempts before he managed to light the cigarettes and his eyes locked with Sherlock's again.

"Is he right though?"

"About what exactly?"

"Me. Corrupting you. Being the reason..."

The piece of dust was crushed into tiny fragments between his shoes. Victor watched the mutilation in silence as as Sherlock hoped fervently the answer would materialise without him speaking. Another tiny smile around Victor's cigarette told him it had at least partially.

"At the clinic they told me to apologize to those that suffered because of my... recreational activities."

Victor laughed and coughed as he choked on some smoke getting caught in his throat. "I think you'd rather die than ever..." and finally Sherlock felt the corner of his mouth move upwards a fraction as well.

They sat in silence looking at the houses opposite through the huge panorama windows and smoked side by side.

Later, wrapped in the solitude of the morgue he couldn't tell anymore what happened between the moment he finished that cigarette and the moment he cupped Victor's face with both hands before kissing the edge of his mouth. What he remembered exactly was the uneasy look it produced in Victor's eyes and the way his heart began to race once more as he grabbed his coat and fled the building stumbling down the staircases. His muscles were tense and ached, he had run most of the way back. For a second he had stopped near Greg's door but then deciding otherwise, preferring the darkness of the morgue and the companionable silence of corpses to akward sympathy.

 

"I was getting worried, you know." The lights gave a tingling and buzzing sound when Molly switched them on only to find Sherlock already crouched over a corpse by the light of a small lamp from her desk with pencil in hand. The detective didn't pay her the courtesy of looking up.

"Greg's been looking for you as well, you didn't turn up yesterday. Neither the day before." The scratching of the pencil didn't cease. Not even when she silently sat a cup of tea on the chest of the corpse. She had long accepted those extended periods of silence and no longer took them completely personal. Sometimes she believed to see some sort of gratitude in his eyes when he finally decided to break the self-imposed spell. 

Greg came and watched him draw for a while, he was never even sure whether the man had noticed him. Since he showed no real signs of intoxication, he made two feeble attempts of waking him to the rest of the world before shrugging at Molly and leaving for his office alone.

 

"I'm sorry you know." It was more the whining undertone than the message that reached him in the depths of his brain. He had wandered off to very far off corners of thought. The morgue a blur as he came back.

"What?"

"If I had known it would make you this uncomfortable, I never..., I had no idea Sherlock?"

"You're talking is inconsistent and nonesensical: pull yourself together, Molly." he sneered at her. His fingers ached looking down he noticed he must have been drawing quite some time, the room was covered in paper.

"Sorry." Molly crouched down to shuffle some of the pages together. "I'm talking about the dinner. I wouldn't have convinced you into going if I had known it would make you...this."

"First and foremost you didn't convince me, you tried to bully me into it with the full force of your childish onerosity. Secondly, you would never manage to convince me into anything I hadn't already decided to do and thirdly what exactly do you mean by saying 'this'?" Molly's cheeks blushed as she shifted the paper on the table back and forth. 

"You've been here for two days now. I'm not sure you left. You were here when I came and...Sherlock, where did you go that night?"

"Went for a walk. There is things I needed to think about in peace."

"I mean, I guess you don't want to talk about it, do you?" 

"Will it get you off my back?" Sherlock sighed and rubbed his eyes. He only now noticed he had been staring at his drawings for a while. "That night just once more confirmed to me how much I hate socializing. All that pointless...never mind. Then I realised there is one person I find bearbable...likeable even. I have missed my chance there however. A frown made itself visible when he caught something glistening in Molly's eyes. Why people always would ask about your emotional state when it made them cry, was beyond him. He rolled his eyes at her and tried to get back to his drawing. Molly caught his hand as if she wanted to take it but stopped herself in the middle of the motion.

"Maybe you would be surprised. Maybe that other person just feels the same about you." Sherlock huffed and began collecting his pencils.

"I have behaved in the most abdominable way and don't hope to be forgiven."

"I don't think you did." Molly answered, but it was lost to Sherlock who had already switched off again, putting on his coat on the way to the door. He noticed that her face was glowing but shrugged it off as being one of those strange moods of her. She seemed to have no control whatsoever over her emotions, went from crying to laughing to sulking for no obvious reason within minutes. It reminded him of his mother who would always react in the most emotional ways to things and he found it overwhelming. Like the time she had cried because Sherlock had told her he thought his life was pointless.

 

It was the only house at the end of the peninsula. They had long left the other weekendhouses behind and passed through several gates that opened effortlessly as soon as the driver nodded at the guards in a meaingful way. The road of white sand and pebbles was framed by high bushes of seagrass that rattled as the wind went through them. It wound through the rolling hills of golden sand all the way towards the horizon. He could tell the sky was deepest blue, even through the shaded windows of the car. The smell of the sea fought its way inside even though he kept them firmly closed. The weeks of hiding had left him with a constant uneasy feeling when uncontrolled visible.

"Almost there, Mr. Holmes." He nodded at the driver who smiled from under his hat. 

"Most of the people I was to bring here, rather enjoyed their stay." He placed the small bag with his luggage in the middle of the enormous living room that was looking out onto the beach. Everything was soft blues and whites and yellows. Mycroft opened the glass doors and breathed in the breeze that hugged him immediatly. The humming of the waves and the smell of the sunwarmed wooden panels of the patio surrounded him like a blanket. 

"I imagine they did." He turned back hesitantly being already captivated by the prospect of spending time down there in the warm, yellow sand.

"Is anyone else going to be staying here?"

"No, Sir. There is me and the cook and you are to expect debriefing tomorrow afternoon. Would you like me to take this upstairs?" Mycroft didn't answer but strolled back towards the patio. He gave the covers of the deckchairs a suspicious glance but found them immaculous and fell alseep the moment his head touched the sunwarmed fabric.

 


	29. Keeping a distance

Greg had been thinking about causing a fuss once Sherlock would turn up at a crime scene again but when he saw the man's face decided otherwise. 

"You alright mate?" he held the door open to Sherlock whose hair glistened from the constant drizzle that had been pouring down the entire afternoon. "It's a man, about midtwenties, upstairs. He waited and watched the hallway as Sherlock took his rounds pacing around the corpse. He solved the case with his usual efficiency within two hours they had a suspect nailed down, waiting in the car for interrogation. 

"Feel like eating something? I'm starving anyway." Sherlock trodded after him wordlessly. 

The waiter recognized them immediatly and cleared one of the tables for them. Sherlock mostly watched as Greg started to devour an enormous portion of chips, only nibbling on one of them now and then. 

"So, what's on in your life?"

"Tell my brother I'm fine." Sherlock snapped.

Greg rolled his eyes. "Listen! I haven't heard from Myc in months, and even if... why are you so hostile lately?"

Sherlock let out a strange sound produced somewhere in the depths of his throat. 

"He has a tendency to get involved with those people I am around and turns them into puppets to control me. I once thought you'd be smart enough to notice but seems he turned you into a lovelorn puppy to act as his will."

Sherlock didn't wait for Greg to begin his speech of angry response. He grabbed his coat and slammed the door of the shop, three long strides before he was out of sight. 

 

He stood there, smoking. Watched a shadowy figure move behind the windows. Watched the lights being turned on and Victor moving between different tables, holding up pictures every now and then. Watched him turn out the lights eventually, getting ready to leave. He didn't move when he passed him by. He stood there in the darkness of the entrance of a house, waiting. Three streetlights later, Victor stopped, rearranged his scarf and turned on his heels, staring into the night.

"Sherlock?" It was more of a whisper but it froze Sherlock to his spot. 

"Come on, this isn't funny." Victor slowly made two steps in his direction, looking around. Sherlock felt his eyes prickling and pressed even more into the wall behind him.

"Sherlock! You freak! Is this your idea of a practial joke?" He had spotted him and swiftly got closer. "God you had me scared." 

Sherlock drew up the collar of his coat in a desperate attempt to hide his eyes in its shadows. Victor studied his face, seeing through the manoevre immediatly. "You utter fool. What was that about the other day?" He was about the same height and Sherlock couldwatch his eyes wander over his face, looking for clues. He was pretty sure there was nothing to be found but checked Victor's reactions carefully anyhow.

"I thought you don't do these things. You never seemed interested back then. I mean it's not like I hadn't tried. and suddenly you turn up, kiss me and just liek that you're gone again. And now you stalk me and scare the life out of me by not talking. What the fuck."

"I have no idea..." Sherlock tried to finish the sentence bt his mouth opened and closed in vain. Victor robbed him of any ability to talk.

"Come on, not here." He grabbed Sherlock's arm and dragged him with him, only letting go when Sherlock seemed to fall into a steady pace next to him. 

 

The flat looked different from the last time he had been here. Most of the furniture had been replaced by more modern, glossy equivalents. Victor dropped his coat on the floor, stepping out of his shoes without looking down. He tried to get a peek of his old room but the door was closed.

"Will you still be here when I come back from the bathroom or do I need to lock the door."

"Oh shut up. Not funny."

Victor was really close now, their noses almost touched. He breathed in the familiar scent that had changed only marginally due to the chemicals he handled to produce his photographs. 

"Aren't you supposed to show me your stamp album or some other collection before you stand this close?" Sherlock crossed his arms in front of his chest, he wasn't going to give up defenses easily again now that he seemed to have regained them.

"Wanna see some pictures then?" Victor stepped back and strolled towards the bookcases, drawing an album from the shelf. Sherlock flopped onto the couch and began thumbing through the thing. He kept his eyes firmly on the photographs thinking hard about questions to ask as Victor flopped on the couch next to him.

"Remember this one?" Victor turned the pages to a small print with rather worn edges. He recognized it immediatly. That night Victor had taken his new camera to test it in twilight. Sherlock stood in front of the illuminated gates of Trinity college, hands buried in his pockets, smiling insecurely at the camera. The gold of the emblem behind him sent strays of light into the black of his hair that made it look like it had been cut from glass. Behind him a crowd of young men in gowns pushed past on their way to formal hall. He ran his thumb over his face in the picture when he felt Victor's breath on his neck. 

"Vic..."

"Sh. This is what you came for, isn't it?"

 

The days came and went in a haze. Mycroft harldy noticed the passing of time in the endless rhythm of meals and strolls on the beach and sleep. That morning he had wandered further than he usually would, leaving behind the small wooden gate that parted the private part of the beach from the that of the next house. The constant breeze offered a welcome resistance he could lean into. A dog came running towards him, barking at the waves that rolled so ever gently. The long hair was tousled by the wind, a child was shouting out in the distance. The dog looked up and then turned, running towards a group of three. A woman with a boy of around ten who tried to catch the attention of the dog, a girl of three at her hand. The dog once more ot distracted by a seagull, now runnign into the waves at full speed. Now all three of them cried out and Mycroft hastened towards the animal, holding him by the collar.

"Wellington!" The boy had reached him and the raging dog, throwing his arms around its neck. 

"Thank you. He keeps getting out of hands. I can't make him stop the hunting." The woman was young, skinny and ore her brownish hair in a pony tail. She knelt down next to the boy petting the dog. The girl shyly hid behind her, looking up at Mycroft who attempted a smile that was answered to his own surprise.

"My brother used to have a dog like that. I know they can get a bit stressful."

"What did you do to keep it from running away?" The boy fastened the leash on the collar and looked p at him, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.

"He kept him on a leash outside but one day he fred himself, running after a rabbit. He got lost and was shot by a farmer." 

"You must be the new neighbour?" The woman held out her hand.

"Just for a few days. The house belongs to a...friend."

"Oh, I see. There was another guy living there some weeks ago. You share the place?"

Mycroft smiled, looking for a way of ending the encounter.

"If you ever feel like company, don't hesitate to come over." She nodded towards a house half hidden in the dunes. Mycroft nodded, petted the dog once more and slowly began his way back.

 

He actually liked his supervisor. She was a woman of hismother's age, understated, unagigtated with a calm voice. the way she cut her food reminded him of his grandmother, the same precision and mannerism. 

"You are welcome to stay as long as you feel the need to. Two or three weeks would be absolutely within the norm after...incidents like this. He was grateful that she wouldn't spell out how close he had come to having his cover blown. 

"Garry tells me you have made contact with the locals?"

"Did Garry indeed? Is that what he is here for then? Their dog had gone stray, conversation was unavoidable, believe me I tried." 

"There is no reason why you shouldn't talk to people, indeed, I'd advise it. Just come up with a convincing story. And keep involvement...superficial."

He kept chewing on a piece of meat, studying her face, then washed it down with a sip of wine. "I understand."

She smiled at him over the rim of her glas.

 


	30. Focal Points

He wasn't able to go to sleep that night long after Gary had come to draw the curtains, leaving a final cup of tae on the desk where he usually sat, staring out at the blackness of the sea. "Just come up with a convincing story..." he rolled the linein his mind for a long time, looking at it from all possible angles. It meant that he was in a position to decide wo he was to be. He could come up with an entirely new existence, then leave it behind like a sweatshirt one wore to the beach but left behind once the vacation was over.That left him with a rather simple looking question: who do you want to be Mycroft Holmes? He had never been a child to take part in role play, he had watched Sherlock quite often as he turned the kitchen into his battlefields of pirates but somehow he had always lacked the inclination to get involved himself. He had always been what he was, even though looking back on his relationship with Irene, he sometimes would have liked to be someone else, someone more exciting. Someone people admired. He went to the computer and opened her webpage, scrollling through the description of her services and pictures. There was a guestbook where customers left compliments and comments and he wondered who they might be, what had made this life so more attractive than one next to him. Their pseudonyms were telling, some so telling and cheesy he felt nauseated but he felt the sudden urge to see their faces, know their lives. By three in the morning any defence broke down and he found himself typing away the most frequent commentators into a form that would give access to the provider's data about their identity.

The rest of the night he was haunted by the memory of that horrible day when Sherlock had come running towards him from the woods, covered in Blackbeard's blood.

 

He woke with a throbbing head and an ache that wouldn't let him forget what happened last night for quite a while. When he found Victor gone, he scrambled to his feet and stumbled into the living room. Victor sat on the floor, stark naked, looking through negatives in a box. 

"I'm going to Spain this afternoon." he looked at one of them holding it to the light of the window.

"Work?" Victor nodded without looking at him. "They called some minutes ago. Wanna come?"

"What for?" Victor rolled his eyes at him but then smiled and spread himself on the floor. "I don't know...sex?"

Sherlock rubbed his face to hide the pink blush rising to his cheeks. He would have agreed to emigrating to the pole if Victor had asked him to.

"Sure."

 

"So this is what you get from your brother if you agree to dance to his tune?" Victor turned in the spacious living room of Sherlock's flat who wouldn't answer, being too busy throwing clothes into a bag in his bedroom.

"You never kept your room this bloody clean."

"He sends someone over once a week."

"What? You have a housemaid? Talking about being posh, young man." He inspected some of the drawings on the desk.

"It's not like you were raised in a shabby barn yourself." Sherlock muttered defensively, while looking for a fresh pair of socks in one of the drawers.

Victor sighed, throwing him a smile. "Gavin always teases me with that. He says even the way I hold my fork gives me away."

Sherlock caught the book just before it hit the floor as it slipped through his numbed fingers. A rush of energy went through every nerve in his body.

"He teases you with that? You mean, you still..."

Victor still smiled, turning to him. "I've never been one for monogamy, you know that. Don't worry, he doesn't care, basically."

"Basically." Sherlock stared at him sheepishly as he raised an eyebrow in question.

"Life's too short to waste it on conventions, don't you think?" Sherlock didn't know what he thought, right now he thought rather little as he tried to identify the source of heat that was rushing through his body with every heartbeat.

"Problem?" Sherlock shook his head and went back to search for that pair of socks.

 

When the dog looked at him through the doors his living room over his late breakfast, Mycroft sighed and finally gave in. He slipped into is black coat and attached a belt to the dog's collar. 

The boy ran towards them as he reached the garden path that led up to the house. Someone had taken a lot of care in arranging the flowers in the beds along it. Their radiant red contrasted heavily with the yellows and blues of the landscape. He waited for the boy to reach them before stepping on their patio. 

He pressed the makeshift leash into his hands and knocked softly against the glass doors. 

"He seems to have taken a liking to you. Would you like to come in?" the woman joked as she opened the door. She wore a swinging skirt and a white blouse with small polka dots tugged into it.

"Ayleen, by the way." she held out her hand to him and he looked at her, startled for a moment, having understood Irene first.

"George."

"So did you have breakfast yet, George?"

"I was interrupted by the visit of your dog, actually." He hesitated to get into the chair until she put a cup of coffee in front of him. The girl eyed him suspiciously before carefully grabbing thel ast piece of cake from a tray on the table. He winked at her and earned another, shy smile.

He had his story straightened out, ready for its first testing under real conditions. He was a successful investment banker from London, returning from a longish business trip in Asia. The house belonged to a colleague. Unmarried, no children, influental and illustrious friends, politicians and artists, actors. Too little freetime to pursue any exciting hobbies but a liking for sailing and an interest in modern art and music.

Ayleen smiled and played with her hair as they dallied away the hours. He had himself talked into several games of chess with the boy and was surprised at how attentive he would listen to his instructions. Sherlock had a habit of reacting with angry fits whenever Mycroft had taken the liberty of critising his strategy. Leopold was by no means as bright but friendly and quite eager to learn. It was only when the girl began yawning that he noticed he had spent the day at their house.

He picked up some stray pieces from the board as Ayleen hustled the children to bed. He listened to their voices as he watched the sky above the sea darken once more. His head felt empty and calm. 

"I really should get going. But thank you for today."

"You're welcome any time." He carefully kept a distance as she hugged him, already painfully aware that his was not covered by superficial any more.

 

"Have you seen him at all lately?"

"No, and I'm not sure I want to." Greg slammed the door behind himself more agitated than he had planned to. He shifted a stack of files into Molly's arms who struggled to keep up with him.

"Don't you think we should be looking for him? I mean, I think it might be hat it's a bit of my fault."

"No! No! He is an arrogant git and I refuse to play along any longer. He made it quite clear that he is not interested in my help, so if you feel like playing along his stupid games, I won't stop you."

He took the files back as they reached the entrance to the meeting room and firmly closed the door in front of her. 

 

As his shift went by, anger vanished and Greg began feeling guilty. On his way home he couldn't pass Sherlock's flat without at least ringing once. He huffed when nothing seemed to stir inside and continued his way home with a voice in his head telling him it was a grown man after all he was worrying about. 

It took a double homicide and fifty unanswered messages on Sherlock's phone for Greg to pick up his phone and call the elder Holmes number. The first few attempts went unanswered which was unusual in itself but then some Gary picked up his call, telling him Mycroft was out for a walk. Greg let out a groan in desperation. The worldsure was becoming a strange place. "A walk? Mycroft Holmes is taking a walk?" There was no reply from the other side.

"Very well, would you let him know I called about his brother?" He ruffled his hair in desperation.

"I will certainly, Sir." The line was disconnected without another word.

He waited another hour for any sign of life from either of the brothers before he found himself breaking into Sherlock's flat with the help of Molly. The air was stale when they opened the door. Molly immediatly went into the kitchen, opening all the cupboards, ruffling through the bits and pieces. The bedroom was a complete mess, sheets on the bed messed up, drawers open, clothes strayed over the floor. As he went for the living room, he ran his fingers behind the cushions of the couch but only foundstray coins and several pencils. He carefully placed them on the table under the large lamp that was covered in drawings as usual. And there it was, in the middle of all the drawings a hasty note. Greg didn't pick it up, something about his placement withing the mess seemed deliberate.

"Molly! Come here!" She appeared in the door immediatly, holding a jar that contained something looking like sugar.

"Gone on holiday?" Her voice toppled as she read it. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I hope it means just that. He's gone." Greg threw back his head, closing his eyes for a moment as fear and anger slowly ebbed down in his mind. The memory of the white face on his carpet next to the Christmas tree faded only slowly.

 

Gary held the door open to him as he returned from flying a kite with Leopold. "There was a message concerning your brother." Mycroft stopped in is movement then slowly slipped out of his shoes, nodding at Gary with his back half turned.

"Gregory Lestrade I presume. Thank you."

With a sigh he slumped into the chair in front of the computer and turned it on. It took a while for the picture of the camera to load but then he saw them, Greg standing in his brother's living room with his head thrown back. The lab rat standing by with a jar in hand, reading the message that had been placed at the centre of the camera's focal point.

"We might have needed that both, brother mine." he whispered, running a thumb over the message on his screen.


	31. Passing the Time

The information arrived but did little to ease the nagging feeling that kept wailing up in him. The customers' lives were hardly any more exciting than his own. Nevertheless he was glued to the pages, the pictures. The usual time for a visit to his neighbours came and went and Mycroft found himself unable to move from the stack of papers. He wondered if they wondered why he wouldn't turn up. There had been no official agreement but he had returned to their patio with the precision of his pocket watch. By the second time Leopold had been sitting on the weatherworn bench near the door, leash and kite in hand, waiting.  
He wasn't interested in their mother, not in that way, but he quickly had grown addicted to the peace that spread within him whenever he watched them go about their day and the guilty pang of greedy pride when they smiled at him, waited for him. He knew it was a dangerous game of affections they were playing, one that was doomed to end eventually and still he had been unable to resist the urge that pulled him back into their living room. He pondered Leopold and the way he had scolded the dog for chasing light reflections on the water with loud barks when his eyes caught his fathers face lurking up at him from one the pages. He sat frozen to the spot, concentrating hard on his breathing. He fought an instinct to smash the keyboard in front of him. Minutes later he noticed it would have been the better option while kneeling over the toilet, throwing up on an almost empty stomach.

Being in love made many things bearable, Sherlock realized when he noticed that the annoying tourists at the table nex to him infuriated him less than usual. He had taken a car and driven without an aim and had ended up in a village in the countryside. Victor was working most of the day and he was left to his own devices. At first he had felt insecure about what to do with himself, sitting in their room, thinking and waiting for him to return. Finally curiosity had won over his aversion having to be among people that weren't Victor and he had charmed the guy at the car rental into giving him a vehicle without having a valid license. He sat on a bench under an enormous olive tree and watched a flock of sheep dozing in the midday heat. He realised that under normal circumstances he would have mocked anyone who felt touched by such a scenery but right now his system was flodded by enough endorphines to make him sleepy.  
He returned to their room with a warm feeling filling his brain. Shedding his shirt carelessly, he fell onto the bed face first. His equipment and shoes were still gone, Victor wasn't home yet. He turned his face into Victor's pillow and inhaled the scent, grinning wildly. For once he didnt have to force his brain into silence and sleep. He faded into slumber with ease, taking reassurance from every breath he took lying on Victor's pillow.  
He woke when it was dark, a hand curling around his hip, a warm patch on his stomach. He turned into the body next to him. Now that he had allowed the sensation body contact offered he craved it with an intensity he usually had associated with the pain of syringes. Victor kissed his forehead while his hands roamed over his naked torso. His breath tasted of cigarettes and some cheap liquor when Sherlock finally found his lips with his, pressing into them determined never to lose contact ever again.

The next day brought him back to the patio. Lissi was lurking there, watching the path as if she was expecting him. He gave her a little wave and the girl smiled at him before running towards the house before he reached it. Ayleen opened a window from the kitchen and leaned outside, waving as well. He nodded at her, both hands buried in his pockets now, very unsure about how to justify his visits once more.  
"Their father...you...does he live here as well?" Her eyes twinkled when she sat down next to him on the steps, drawing a shawl closer around her shoulders. He had been watching the waves crashing onto the shore while she tugged two resisting children into bed. She offered him a glass of lemonade before answering which he took and rolled between his palms.  
"My husband sent us on holiday here, he is working a lot. " It sounded deliberate. "Banking." she added after a small pause in which he had studied her face intently while she kept staring ahead.  
"How long have been here with them?"  
"It's been a couple of weeks now." She sighed but covered it with a laugh instantly. "He's going to come and pick us up...soon. As soon as he can."  
He wanted to ask about the details of the strange arrangement but stopped himself when he saw her muscles tensing under the silk of her blouse. Instead he sipped his lemonade, fixating the darkening horizon in front of them.  
"You aren't with someone, are you?"  
He shook his head. "Not really my cup of tea. Never found time..."  
"You think you'd like it? A family I mean?" He smiled to himself, thinking about Lissi smiling at him over her bowl of cereals.  
"Never really thought about it I guess." he lied, finishing his glas in one go.  
"You sure have something mysterious about you. I've been with you every day for the last week and I feel like I know nothing about you."  
"Nothing interestign about me, just so very ordinary, there is nothing you find intersting enough to remember in particular."  
She huffed, taking the glass from his hands and returned towards the house. He bent his stiff knees before he followed herinside out of an instinct. She had draped herself on the couch and he got in a chair opposite, watching her fall asleep without another word. When the sund came up, he pulleda blanket up over her before slipping through the glass doors, taking the long way along the beach towards his house.


	32. Superficial Involvement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes a murder and a slightly graphic description of it. If blood isa trigger for you, you might want to skip this chapter.

The weather changed quickly over night, turning the bright colours of their secret hiding places into worn greys and blues. The third day of rain Leopold nagged him into taking them to the small town near the end of the peninsula for stacking up on comic books and ice cream. He had wondered what he could be talking about to them but as soon as Lissi heard about the prospect of ice cream, she hopped like a rabbit next to him beginning an endless stream of questions and stories that didn't cease until he lifted her up to make her choice at the ice cream parlour. Leopold rolled his eyes at his sister and tried to stop her enthusiam once or twice and Mycroft felt pang in his chest, thinking about Sherlock and his happy babbling, never ceasing.

"So, which of these do you read?" Mycroft felt overwhelmed as he chased the boy through the comic aisles of the book shop. 

"All of them." The stack of books in his hands was growing steadily as the boy picked them from the shelves with the look of a connoisseur before deciding for one or the other. "I like Batman best, though. Do you know it?"

"I'm afraid not." Mycroft gave the dark figure on the cover a suspicious look."

"He fights criminals, you know."

"So, he is a police man dressing as a bat?" 

"What did you read when you were a child?" It sounded like an accusation.

"I liked history." he answered meekly, not really remembering any book that would earn Leopold's approval. 

"I like this one the bestest." Lissi pressed a copy of Wind in the Willows against his leg.

"That's because you are a dumb baby."

"I know that one." he picked her up and winked at her which she answered by pulling down one of her eyelids with her finger.

They got trapped in the shop as the rain had turned into an enormous wall of water and so Mycroft sat in one of the tiny chairs of the children's corner, reading the story of Mole being homesick at Christmas to an enchanted audience of two.

 

"We should have taken your mother with us. She's going to wonder what took us so long." he sighed to Leopold as he lifted a sleeping Lissi into the back of the car.

Leopold shrugged. "She doesn't like to leave the house. She stays inside most of the time."

Mycroft fixated the boy over the rearview mirror, a strangling feeling of uneasiness creeping up in him.

"Leopold, do you have any idea why?" The boy shook his head. Mycroft bit his lip and started the car, thinking about definitions of superficial involvement.

 

It was only the headlights that were visible in the twilight and heavy rain but it was enough to make out the car coming towards them was travelling at full speed down the narrow path that led up to the gate of the estate. He slowed their own down and kept to the very edge of the street until the black vehicle had passed them with shrieking brakes.

"What was that?" Leopold looked up from his book and followed the car with his eyes.

"I'm sure I don't know." Mycroft carefully kept his bewilderment out of the tone of his voice. As they reached the gate, they found it open. He stopped, nevertheless waiting for the guard to check their ID but no one apeared. He sounded the horn twice without effect, then locked all the doors before slowly driving on. The boy had begun to look worried, his limbs twitching with tension.

"Leopold, if there is anything you would like to tell me or anything I should know, this is the moment." The child bit his lip but remained silent.

It wasn't until they reached the path to their house that he broke his silence. "Mum bought a gun when we moved here. She keeps it in her bedside cabinet."

Mycroft closedh is eyes for a second before he slowly turned the car around and kept driving towards his own place without a further word. Pulling up in front of the house, he pressed the girl into Gary's arm who looked puzzled but didn't ask any questions. Lissi yawned and asked about dinner, half asleep and oblivious of the tension that had begun building in Mycroft and her brother. He grabbed the boy's shoulder and steered him inside. 

"You're staying in the kitchen with Gary, I'm right back. Leopold nodded, his face pale. He went upstairs and grabebd his gun from its drawer in the desk and made his way towards their house with speedy haste.

 

It was obvious that something was wrong, he could make out the exact spot the car had been parked, the traces that the wheels had left on the gravelled porch still visible despite the heavy rain. The house lay dark. He kept his back to the wall as he pushed the door open that had only been leaned. The first thing he saw was the dog's dead body on the stairs. His blood was still dripping from a skillful shot in the head. 

"I'm sorry old boy." he whispered as he carefully climbed over the corpse to get upstairs. If she kept the weapon in her bedroom, it was likely she would be there. When he found the furniture of the hallway in complete disarray, he lowered the gun. He knew he had come to late. He switched on the light in her study and found her lying in front of an opened safe. He tried not to look too closely at the pool of blood on the carpet but made for the phone on her desk, dialling his supervisor's number. 

"My involvement with the locals has just turned rather messy." he muttered without greeting.

"Details?"

"Looks like a robbery but it might be something more." His gaze had fallen on a note written on red paper. "Yep. Mafia." he added, reading it.

"Don't call police, I'm on my way." 

 

He sat next to her corpse when they came, quickly securing the evidence before they would hand the matter over to the local police. 

"My condolency." Q looked uneasily at him when she handed him the paper to sign. He took his pen from inside his jacket.

"Not in that way." he spoke firmly as he put his signature on the dotted line. "Her kids are at my place." he added after a short pause in which he had skimmed the handwritten report once more.

"I'll arrange for them to be picked up." she folded the paper and carefully pushed it into a briefcase.

"To where, by whom? They were hiding here, it'll take us some days to contact their father. If he is alive."

"Myc, watch your step. You're already too much involved, emotionally." He didn't answer or look at her. So she finally sighed, staring at the corpse on the carpet.

"Do you have any idea what it means to look after two children in a situation like this?"

"I have a younger brother." he answered calmly, wiping his hands on a tissue. Blood surely was a strange thing. No matter how carefully one tried to avoid contact, one always ended up with at least little stains of it on clothes and hands.

"I'll have a psychologist looking at them first thing tomorrow. And you will leave for London tonight. You'll take them to your place until I can think of a better place for you. And you will not get involved in any investigations in this matter. Is that understood?" 

"Of course."

"Myc, I mean it." She took hold of his arm to make him look at her.

"I won't. I know someone much more suitable for this kind of matter." he grinned at her and she rolled her eyes at him, pinching her nose.

 


	33. Phone Calls

Leopold didn't need explaining. They shared a look when Mycroft entered the kitchen. Lissi was a different matter. He picked her up and placed her on top of the kitchen counter so they almost saw eye to eye. She looked at him expectantly and he had no idea what to say. He remembered the words his headteacher had used when he informed him about the death of a distant uncle, but this was a slightly different situation. For him and Sherlock death had always been a straightforward thing. The heart stopped, organs stopped, eventually the brain stopped. Easy. It happened to everyone, no point in getting all fuzzy about it. At the funeral of that uncle Sherlock had tried to open the corpse's eyelid to see if the eyes still looked focussed. A cousin had called them fucking weirdos and given Sherlock a smack on the head. That's when he realised things weren't as straightforward to others.

"I just went over to your house. There was a burglary. Your mother is gone, dead, and so is the dog." The girl looked at him as if she was waiting for the punchline of what he said. He held her stare.

"When does she come back?"

"Dead people can't come back."

"Where do they go?"

"Nowhere. They sort of dissolve. Unless you choose to believe in a God of sorts then you believe they go to heaven."

He waited for her to process what he had said. The girl looked at Leopold who sniveled behind him. It was only then that silent tears ran down her chin. He forced himself to place a hand on her back, surprised by the warmth that radiated from the tiny body.

"George?" It took him a moment to realize it was him the boy addressed. He turned to face him.

"You're coming with me. We're leaving for London as soon as your things and mine are packed." He once more picked up the tiny bundle on the counter and flinched when he felt tiny arms locking around his neck, small, cold feet pressing into his sides through the shirt. 

The drive was mostly silent. He had wondered how to explain the armed guy in the driving seat but neither of the two seemed bothered. Half way, when they had to stop for the driver to take a break, the crying began once more. He got out of the car quickly and rummaged through the stuffed trunk until he found the book. He took turns with Leopold reading Wind in the Willows until the car pulled up in front of his house at two in the morning. 

 

Sherlock knew who was calling when he woke to the sound of the phone in their room. Victor had already left. He hesitated a moment but then decided to go for fighting. 

"Good morning Gavin. He's out."

There was a short silence in the line from the other side. "Right. I assume it's pointless to ask you to tell him I called?"

"You assume correctly. I'd rather bite off my own tongue."

"I don't get what he sees in you. You're lazy, arrogant and out of control of everything in your life." He could imagine Gavin's face redden as he spoke with barely contained aggressiveness.

"And still I am here, naked." He stretched and made sure Gavin was able to hear his yawn."

"You have no reason to feel smug. You're not the first, you won't be the last he's shagging. But there is one constant in his life: me."

"Have a great day at the office, Gavin. I need to go before you bore me to death." he hung up with a grin but the feeling of victory was somehow short lived. By the time he reached the shower, he felt his body tensing with nerves and he knew there was no point in trying to have breakfast.

He went down to the breakfast room nevertheless. There was little else to do. Victor usually left long before Sherlock reached consciousness and seldom returned before midnight. Sherlock's brain was running at idle and he was getting closer to the edge. Any sort of data was postponing the eventual arriving of the black dog. And he knew such wouldn't go down well with Victor. As he closed the door behind himself, the phone rang again. He couldn't be bothered to indulge in a second round of fighting so he turned the key and strolled towards his cup of tea.

"Sir, there is a message for you." The waiter bowed down and placed a little card next to his unused plate, bearing his brother's name.

"Tell him you couldn't find me." he shoved the card back towards the waiter.

"Sir, he told me you would say that and he told me to answer as follows." He cleared his throat and began reading from a note he had kept in his gloved hand. "Grow up brother mine, I wouldn't interrupt you shagging that idiot if it wasn't important. Case?" He looked at Sherlock as if expecting an explanation. But all he would get was a dirty look.

"Thank you. Message received." he turned back to his cup and reached for the newspaper. The waiter nodded and returned towards the desk.

"Sir?" He was back and Sherlock groaned looking up from the paper he hadn't been reading.

"We both know you're bored. Don't make me force you. Organised crime. No police involved. You know you want to."

"Right. Tell him this: I would like to see you try, lazy git. Why don't you get Greg to do the dirty work for you?" The waiter winced as he noted down the answer.

"Sir, I don't want to sound imposing but wouldn't it be easier if you spoke to the gentleman in person?"

"Ah, see there you are mistaken. I don't talk to my brother any more and he certainly isn't a gentleman. He tricks and lies to people for money and snoops around other peoples' business."

The waiter paled and nodded, returning towards the desk once more.

He waited for Victor to return until four in the morning. When he did he was tipsy. He followed him to the bathroom and watched him getting in the shower. After a moment of deliberation he joined him, running his mouth along Victor's throat. He bit down at the back of his neck and sucked, leaving a dark red mark.

Victor winced and caught his arm before turning towards him. 

"What I feel for him is different. Why can't you just let it go?" Victor pressed him into the tiles of the wall, and locked their gaze, grinding against his stomach. Sherlock bit down again, this time piercing the skin deliberatly. "Sorry." he muttered. 

 

Sherlock dressed slowly, inspecting the marks he had left on Victor's back as he lay in the twilight in a half doze.

"Where you're going?"

"Not tired." he slipped on his shoes and made his way to the lobby. The desk was empty. So he went on outside, walking against the stream of night crawlers that returned from parties and clubs. His fist tensed around the bundle of banknotes when he saw the sort of figure he was looking for, leaning at the entrance of a jazz club. The sachet changed ownership as they shook hands and he kept running it through his fingers carefully all the way back. 

When he reentered the hall, the desk was occupied by a young girl, popping gum bubbles while watching some Spanish soap on a tiny screen in the backroom.

"There was a call for me yesterday morning. Would you please call the number it came from for me?" She hesitated to take her eyes off the screen where a girl was shouting angrily at a guy.

"Never mind." Sherlock reached for the phone himself and for a moment it seemed as if she would protest but then the guy slapped the girl and her attention was fully occupied. He dialled his brother's number from memory and waited for the line to connect.

"Hello?" a tiny voice answered.

"Hello. Who's this?"

"You have to say your name first. Who are you?"

"Sherlock. Who are you?"

"I'm Lissi."

"Right. I'd like to speak to Myc please."

"Who is Myc?"

"I might have misdialled."

"Here's only me and George and Leopold."

"I'm sorry, I got the wrong number." As he was about to hang up, he heard his brother's soft voice tutting in the background.

"What did I tell you about not picking up the phone, Lissi? This is dangerous."

"You said don't answer the phone in my study. But this is the hallway." the girl's voice giggled.

"Don't pick up any phone, this isn't a game, child. Hello?"

"George?"

"It's complicated."

"hmm."

"Coming?"

"Sort of enjoying this here, you know."

"I'm sure you do. That's why you call back at seven in the morning."

"A child?"

"Two." Mycroft sighed. "Not mine in any conventional way. There is a flight in two hours. I booked a window seat for you. Please make sure you get rid of any illegal souvenirs before you reach customs. Preferably not by consuming them."

"Didn't say I was coming."

"I'll have someone waiting for you. We'll meet at the club."

"Is dad involved in this?"

"No. Got my own membership."

"Preposterous."

"See you for late lunch." The line was disconnected. On the screen the girl was slamming a door at the guy who seemed to yell explanations at her.

"I shall be checking out in half an hour. Please have my invoice ready." As he reached for the key in his pocket, he made contact with the sachet once more which sent an electric shock through him. He would discard of it in one of Victor's bags, he decided, slowly making his way up the stairs.

 


	34. Unexpected Visitors

 

"I've got work in London." He carefully folded the crumpled shirts into his bag.

"Work? You mean poking corpses and drawing pictures of it?" Sherlock made no reply but collected the books that he had scattered around the room.

"Why do you make things so difficult?" He hadn't expected him to get all maudlin. He ran a hand trough his curls, trying to comb them in shape.

"Call him. He cares. Basically. Very much."

"But I don't!" Victor caught his arm as he got up from the bed. Sherlock avoided looking at him.

"I know. Which is why I got work in London." he answered, bleating.

"So, this is it?"

"I don't know. I guess." He had planned on dropping the sachet in one of his suitcases on the way out, but decided otherwise when he heard a strangled sob from the other side of the bed, throwing it into the toilet.

 

"Sir, you've been queueing for the wrong counter. First class is boarding over there." The elderly stewardess pointed towards an empty counter with a considerably more attractive counterpart waiting idly for customers.

"Pretentious twat." Sherlock muttered, repocketing his passport.

"I beg your pardon, Sir?"

"Nothing." he snapped. His head ached ans so did his bones. His throat felt raw and swollen. How people could name this heartache was beyond him. Probably because the whole matter was beyond him. And he hated when that happened. He hated it even more when his brother was right. And he had never been more right than about Victor.

As he waited for his flight to be called, he thought about whether he should leave Victor a message about the possible infections human bites caused. If this was a flu coming on, curing that bite wouldn't be fun. Then he remembered the remark about him poking corpses and his guilt ebbed down.

 

The club always gave him a feeling of being suffocated. So much old things, so much ornamet, so much predjudiced, old men. Mycroft was seated close to a window, though hiseyes were closed, hands stapled under his chin. He looked exhausted, aged and worn since he had last seen him. He sat down next to him, waiting if he would return from his mind palace on his own, watching the eyes move behind the lids with rapid speed. Eventually he settled for a short hem and watched his body come back to life. He had to be in deep trouble if he settled on going insde his mind in public. Mycroft had always avoided showing himself in that state outside of family.

The brothers nodded at each other and Mycroft led the way towards a private room where a liveried man with white, receding hair served the first course as soon as he saw them approaching. 

"I'm sorry I was right. I had hoped he would pove me wrong, for your sake." Mycroft ran a finger along the armrest of his leather upholstered chair tipping each rivet with his index finger without looking at his brother. 

"Compulsion neurosis starting again? You must be in trouble deep, brother mine." Sherlock leaned back and watched Mycroft's face redden.

"Not everybody can just run from responsibility all the time, like you." Mycroft hissed before calming himself again with considerable effort.

"So, enlighten me how you managed to procure yourself two children without being present at their conception."

Mycroft leaned both elbows on the table propping his head on his hands and gazed into Sherlock's eyes for a moment. "I should probably confirm your suspicions that I no longer work at the embassy. I just returned from that business trip to North Korea you so kindly brought to mother's attention. It is...custom to recuperate for a few days after such a...trip before returning to the office. That's where I met their mother and got a little too involved..."

He seems to have vanished from the surface of the world, we better prepare for the worst case." Q sipped on her tea in Mycroft's kitchen. Sherlock was leaning in the door frame, giving her a challenging look. 

"No one vanishes without any trace. Simply impossible." Mycroft raised an eyebrow at her in response to Sherlock's remark.

"You brother tells me you are efficient in your methods and rather successful. I hope you are aware that this is not the ordinary everyday murder. As far as we are informed, most of London's financial elite is involved in this in some way or the other. I would rely on your disrection and...loyalty."

Sherlock kept her stare for some moments until a tiny smile flitted over her face. "Alright then, come and see me tomorrow morning." Q got out of her chair and Mycroft helped her into her coat.

 

On his way back Sherlock had the taxi stop in front of Greg's flat, shrugging off the driver's remark that half past two in the morning was not the most common time to pay someone a visit. He rang once to announce his arrival before picking the door open in his usual manner. Greg stumbled towards him as he opened the front door of the flat and Sherlock courteously chose to ignore the fact he was stark naked. There was too much burning on his mind that needed an audience right now and so he began rattling away about his first insights into the case he had just been handed by his ridicously overtaxed brother, pointing out that this was under the seal of complete confidiality and that he wouldn't be able to help with any of Greg's petty cases on the side.

"Clara, meet Sherlock. I mentioned him once or twice I think." Greg grabbed a shirt from his couch and ruffled his hair. Only now Sherlock noticed the woman that had appeared behind Greg. She had red, curly hair and a rather gamine figure. Her face was sprinkeld in freckles, eyes a fascinating pale blue. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"I think you did, twenty or thirty times." she yawned, holding out her hand to Sherlock who stared at it sheepishly. 

"Did he also mention my brother by any chance?" Sherlock looked at Greg as he said it and sighed to himself when he noticed the man hadn't picked up on the hint.

"Would have expected at least a postcard after leaving without further notice, young man. Didn't last long that vacation of yours, did it? Got bored? " Greg stretched and yawned once more.

"Something of the sort. Pants."

"What?"

"Pants, Greg."

"Ah. Sorry." He hustled towards the bedroom while Sherlock kept talking. Clara stood in the middle of the room, looking rather lost before escaping to the bathroom.

 

Mycroft was also woken from his thoughts by an unexpected ringing at his door, though the time was a little more civilised. He straightened his tie and lokked at hte surveillance monitor.

"Of all people not now!" he swore at the blurred image of his mother but pressed the release for the door anyway.

"Really, I thought at least you would call me when you are back. It realyl took Sherlock to let me know."

"He told you then. How rather nice of him. Why do you have a suitcase with you?" She looked at him with look of confusion.

"Didn't you get my message?"

"Would I be standing here, quizzing you like an imbecile if I had?"

"I must say, you are rather hard to contact these days."

"Mother! What do you do here and why did you bring luggage?" Mycroft tried hard to keep his voice steady but impatience was slowly sneaking into his tone of voice.

"Your father has returned from his little....from Brazil and I refuse to stay under the same roof with him atthe moment."

"And now you chose my roof instead?"

Again she looked at him with a look of complete confusion. "Well, yes. Sherlock said you were looking forward to seeing me."

"George? Leo has taken my doll's head again." Lissi's whining voice floated down the stairs and Mycroft could do nothing else than take two steps backwards and place himself on the first stair. He studied his mother's face which murphed from surprised to confused and back again.

"Who are you?" The girl's voice had turned curious and demanding.

"Who is George?" Mycroft looked into his mother's eyes and feebly lifted his left hand.

"I'm Lissi and he is George." Lissi clarified flouncing down the staircase in her pink pyjamas.

"I have a feeling I should call you a lot more, I seem to have missed out on not so insignificant changes in your life about...three? years ago?" She took of her gloves, placing them on the table next to the phone. Her eyes went back and forth between her son and the child that now curled her arms around Mycroft's throat demanding to be carried into the kitchen.

"It's not what it looks like." Mycroft muttered, warming the tiny feet pressing into his sides with his hands as he walked towards the kitchen.

 


	35. Club Members

"Will you ever actually tell me where you've been the last couple days?"   
"On vacation."  
"Don't go overboard with the details. It's not like Molly and I were worried out of our minds." Greg ruffled his hair in frustration as he watched Sherlock ignoring his breakfast.   
"Any idea where you'll start?" He changed topic as he saw Sherlock's face turning icy and distant.  
"Myc has arranged for me to meet the people who did the forensics at the place. I'll just see where to take it from there." Another spoon of sugar went into his cup.  
"And, I mean, who will be leading the investigations? There must be some kind of police be involved." A faint smile went over Sherlock's face.  
"Since my brother has joined the dark side, there seem to be hardly any limits to what he can make happen." His spoon gave a tingle as it hit the cup rather forcefully. Greg's hand began tracing invisible lines on the table and Sherlock couldn't help but fell irritated by the faint blush that was spreading on the inspector's face.  
"And Clare? How long do you intend to have your infatuation with her last this time?" Greg looked up from his hands, searching Sherlock's eyes.  
"Sherlock, you might be more intelligent than I will ever even begin to understand but you understand fuck about relationships and human feelings."  
"So people keep telling me and I begin to think it might be to my advantage to keep it that way. It seems to include a lot of self deception and foolish behaviour."  
"Sorry, I didn't mean to sound that rude." Greg followed Sherlock who had begun getting dressed. "I just sometimes get frustrated with..."   
"Me." Sherlock finished the snetence for him as he picked up his coat once more making for the door.  
"That's not what I was about to say."  
"No, it's what you meant." Sherlock gave him a grimace that was a very bad imitation of a broad smile.  
"Do keep in otuch about this case, will you? I worry, you know."  
"You're not my father, Greg."  
"No, I'm a friend."  
"Believe me, I don't have friends." The door closed behind Sherlock without the bang Greg had expected. He dropped on his couch and groaned with desperation.

The mornings he woke up with his heart pounding came without warning. No pattern he was able to establish. The consequences could be severe on certain days when the feelings became too powerful to surpress with sheer will power. The days when he felt as if there was too much life within him that wanted to be released and used in a meaningful way but there simply was no way of doing so. It set his blood seemingly on fire and he had the sudden need to wait or run until total exhaustion would struck him down and allow for some pained rest. Everything seemed pointless those days, his life a waste of time, his existence a punishable waste of space. Back in the days he had been with Timothy, he would fight the feeling by handing control over to the carnal side of his being his hormonal system seemed to scream at him from the depth of subconscious demanding him to give it a reason to produce vast amounts of adrenalin, to prove his worthiness of using up earthly resources. As sweat was pooling under his silk pyjamas, he grabbed the corner of the sink and fixated himself in the mirror above the sink, clenching his teeth at the aging face ridiculing him from the other side of the reflecting surface. He once had thought of giving into the temptation of asking Sherlock whether it was something he went through but his gut feeling told him that the remedy on offer from him included inserting sharp needles into veins full of raging, burning, demanding blood.  
Sherlock lingered at the door to his office, face sleep deprived and obviously malnourished. They skipped any greeting and Mycroft led him into the room, carefully closing the door behind him.   
"I suspect your appearance means you have made progress?"  
"I have been in contact with people who seem to have known him. He basically fell out with everyone around. There are several people who are looking for him because he either owes them money or just tricked them into buying worthless shares. Weˋre talking huge sums here." Mycroft kept staring ahead, listening to his brother but showing no visible reaction. Sherlock waited for a moment, taking in his brotherˋs tense posture.  
"I was wondering if you would join me. I could use backup tonight. Iˋm meeting someone who claims to have information about his whereabouts."  
"Where?"   
"Some nightclub." Sherlock waved the question off as insignificant."  
"How much?"  
"Half a million."  
Mycroft waited for some people passing the door talking before nodding.  
"Youˋd have to meet me here. What time?"  
"Not going home any more?"  
"Mummey is getting rather...touchy and a little too attached to the children. A curse you brought about my house I was informed."  
Sherlock leaned back into the chair and studied his brotherˋs face with contempt. "My pleasure."  
"Why are you so keen on seing them break this marriage? You talked her into leaving, didnˋt you?" Mycroft leaned forward, studying Sherlockˋs face in turn and watched his eyes turn dark.   
"The real question is, why are you, a man in his mid thirties so keen on keeping them together when we both know our parentsˋ marriage should have ended years ago, maybe even never have happened."  
"You have your share in their quarrels, brother mine and so you know."  
"I never was part of your little club."  
"Because you never wanted to."  
"Because I knew I never would be."  
Mycroft fixed his eyes on him, trying to convey a warning without words. This was about as much blasphemy as he was willing to take. It was met by a destructive smile of superiority in Sherlockˋs face.  
"Iˋll have you picked up." Mycroft sighed, smoothing some papers in front of him with his hand.  
"That ring is new. Work?" Sherlock nodded towards his left hand.  
"If I told you I would have to kill you." Mycroft smirked, turning the ring in question between two fingers, appeased by the appaulled and slightly annoyed reaction it gained him.  
"Sounds like you. Going round and killing who refuses to dance to your tune."  
"Youˋre a hopeless romantic Sherlock. Be on time tonight, Iˋd rather get this business over with as soon as I can." He got up as to signal he saw this conversation as being at an end. Sherlock ignored the signal and lingered in his chair, sending a glance of appraisal at the files covering the desk. Mycroft cleared his throat and held Sherlockˋs eyes as they met. "I have other, rather urgent appointments, I shall see you tonight."  
"So I am dismissed Sir?" Sherlock mocked him, slowly heaving his meagre body out of the chair.


	36. Mycroftˋs  Birthday

Mycroft groaned when he saw the little assembly making for his door. 

"Whatˋs wrong?" Leopold dropped his book and got on hs toes to catch a glimpse through the doors little window.

"Nothing to worry about. Thatˋs my brother with some friends of his. Weˋre going out tonight."

"Really? You go out?" The boy looked at him with confusion.

"Occasionally, of course." Mycroft felt his neck redden with embarrassment before returning his attention to his visitors. Sherlock was marching ahead, the coat traded in for one of Gregˋs leather jackets and a very tight pair of jeans that made hs behind look a way beyond describing without sounding inappropiate. The lab rat was dancing along next to him, wearing a mini skirt and a top showing her mid riff, glitter on eyelids, lips and nails. Her hair had been straightened and then curled again, now turning into a huge mess as the damp of the night got into it. Greg kept his distance, looking his usual self. He stopped for a second as Sherlock stooped open the gate to his patio without further parade, giving the house an unsure look all over. For some reason Mycroft felt his heart sink at it.

 

"What exactly is the point of dragging them along? Not exactly subtle that entourage of yours." he hissed at his brother while dragging him into the kitchen onthe sleeve of his jacket. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"How did you plan to bring the money into there? I donˋt think they do cheques and a suicase cuffed to your arm isnˋt exactly subtle either. So we need someone who can wear a large bag without looking suspicious to outsiders." He pointed to Molly who was shifting a large, yellow handbag from one arm to the other while their mother fussed with Greg in the hallway. Mycroft swallowed audibly.

"Of course I wonˋt tell her, she would faint before we even have left the premises." Sherlock mustered his hands that were hidden in a new pair of leather gloves.

"And Greg?"

"Gun."

"You bring a police officer to a meeting with a criminal." Mycroft had trouble keeping his voice steady.

"An officer who is not on duty and thinks you are celebrating your birthday tonight. Heˋs just backup. In case you are unable to...offer sufficient protection."

"Itˋs my birthday?"

"It is indeed, brother mine, you just turned 39. The second time."

"Iˋm 32."

"I thought it would be to your advantage to synthesise your age a little more with your looks."

"Oh, how you care for me." Mycroft pressed through clenched teeth and Sherlock threw a plastic bag at him.

"Iˋd prefer you to adjust your appearance to the rest of the party." With two fingers Mycroft fished a pair of leather trousers from it and a dark, shirt made from shiny material.

"Remind me to never leave you in charge of anything connected with me ever again, will you?"

"This is the beauty of the whole affair, you know? Seeing you squirm because you have to rely on your little addict brother for help, it just adds to the thrill of this chase."

"Guys, I really donˋt want to interrupt your little fight but it might be time to get going." Greg leaned in the door of the kitchen, grinning broadly at Mycroft. "And happy birthday, Myc."

"I can find nothing happy about this."

"Ah, weˋll find a way of cheering you up. How old are you now anyway? Your brother tried to convince me youˋre turning fourty."

"Too old for this..." Mycroft sighed, grabbing the shirt and trousers to get changed. He shot Sherlock another glare before slamming the bathroom door behind himself.

"I didnˋt know he had kids." Greg whispered, leaning towards Sherlock who shrugged, inspecting the tip of his shoes with forceful intent.

"I never thought he would be the sort of person....I mean relationship...the mother?" Greg muttered before realizing this probably wasnˋt a topic to be addressed with Sherlock at the moment, or maybe any time really. He had been surprised when the younger Holmes had approached him the other day, after their last meeting he had convinced himself this had been the end to their private involvement. Then, at two in the morning the slender figure had been back, once more curled up on his couch. He had checked the pulse and forearms trying not to wake him, somehow convinced he would get up and run once more. Instead Sherlock had rolled back his sleeves himself without opening his eyes more than a slit, cursed him under his breath before falling asleep again. It hadnˋt taken much work to convince Greg to take part in tonightˋs adventure after that.

 

Sherlock surely hadnˋt miscalculated with regard to their outfits. The man he was there to meet wore a baby blue suit and green shoes and he surely wasnˋt standing out much. Mycroft fought a violent battle with himself when he pressed through the densing crowd of dancers smelling of alcohol and sweat and smoke. The music hammered in his ears and he felt like screaming or hitting someone within minutes. He tried to concentrate on keeping an eye on Molly and especially her bright yellow back that she had dropped carelessly in a seat next to herself at the bar, quite unaware of the rather bulky envelope Sherlock had dropped into it as they had entered.

"This wasnˋt your idea, was it?" Greg snorted as he became aware of Mycroftˋs grim expression.

"Thought so, you donˋt look like the sort of person. You shouldnˋt have let Sherlock bully you into stuff."

"Youˋre one talking on this matter. Donˋt tell me he didnˋt use some kind of threat to get you here." Mycroft yelled, trying to be understood over the bass.

Greg shrugged and smiled into his glas for a moment. "I donˋt know, I donˋt really go places like this any more but itˋs not like I mind. And it was a chance to get out. I guess you know the sort of feeling."

Mycroft couldnˋt help but think how much he would have liked to be at home, brooding over some files, alone or even at the office or some boring meeting, anything but stuck in the middle of a dark, loud, smelly, overcrowded room. "Yes, of course." he answered,inspecting the glas in his hands with growing mistrust as blacklight illuminated several fingerprints on it that certainly werenˋt his.

"Do you dance?"

"Not if I can avoid it." Greg laughed at that and shook his head. He went over and took hold of Mollyˋs hand, pulling her towards the dancefloor. Which left Mycroft standing on his own at the bar with an enormous yellow handbag on his arm.

He wass about to think about possible ways of exit from this manmade hell when Sherlock shot him al ook from across the room where he had been talking to a guy that looked like a semi professional wrestler. The two of them made their way through the crowd of dancers towards a door labelled private. Mycroft handed the envelope to Sherlock as they passed him quickly. As the door closed behind his brother, he felt for the gun in hsi jacket. Minutes ticked by and he grew more and more concerned. This shouldnˋt take so long at all. If they would have to leave quickly and Sherlock needed his help, he was too far off to be of any assistance. 

Molly seemed to rather enjoy herself dancing and Greg had by now one arm around her hips. Mycroft took a deep breath and dropped the bag where he was standing. He bumped into several dancing couples before he reached the pair, grabbing Gregˋs arm.

"Changed your mind?" Somehow he got hold of his hand an pulled him towards him. His face was way too close to Gregˋs, he could smell the drink he had had. 

"Youˋre drunk." Mycroft felt his hips swaying to the beat, the warmth of Gregˋs hand burning on his back.

Greg grinned and pulled him even closer, his breath now blowing into his ear. His mind was screaming at him to get rid of all the unwanted physical contact before he realised this was his one chance to keep an eye on the door without looking too suspicious. The wrestler was lingering in the corner not far off and though he knew he would certainly have the upper hand in an encounter with that man eventually, he wasnˋt too keen on the experience. To keep a minimum of distance between them, he rested his left hand on Gregˋs chest feeling his heart pounding through the sweat damp shirt. By the time he remembered Molly, she had disappeared.

"Whereˋs she gone?"

"Probably looking for Sherlock." Greg breathed into his ear. Mycroft closed his eyes and listened to his heartbeat mixing with the bass of the music in his ears.

 

"Sherlock says we should be leaving." Mycroft winced when he felt Greg breaking the contact as he turned towards Molly.

Sherlock breathed deeply as he reached the outside. He found a cigarette in one of his pockets andd lit it, waiting for the rest of the party to make their way into the street. His brotherˋs ginger head appeared first, the face flushed.

"Seems I shall be taking another holiday in Brazil." He handed him bulged envelope that now seemed to contain paper.

"Letˋs get out of here." Sherlock extinguished his cigarette with his shoe.

"What the heck is this about? Weˋve hardly been here for an hour." Greg jogged towards them.

"Greg, you are more than intolerably daft today. This isnˋt Mycˋs birthday, we came here so I could solve a case, which I did." Sherlock pulled the zipper of his leather jacket up and turned to leave. 

"Oh, just to save you time everybody: Greg, my brother hates being touched by other people, the only reason he keeps contact with an disgustingly touchy and mentally restricted person like you is that he wants you to keep an eye on me. So you better get back to that bad excuse of an girlfriend of yours that looks so much like him and keep pretending because as soon as the alcohol wears off, youˋll lose any courage to admit this infatuation with him to yourself. And please, spare me the whining when he drops you tomorrow morning because his life is oh so complicated and dangerous. Because thatˋs what he does, Greg. He uses people and then drops them."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Greg stormed towards the detective until Molly stepped in his way. "Why do you always have to...fuck!" he clenched his fist and stomped with desperation.

"I hate it when you lie. And thatˋs what you do! All the time." Sherlockˋs voice sounded like it could cut glas. He gave the assembly a final look before marching away from them.

 


	37. Between Heaven and Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you like it, leave a comment. :)

"You both are absolutely impossible." Molly accused them after a few moments of silence and stares from onlookers before she slowly began to walk away into the same direction Sherlock had left.

Mycroft began rubbing his temples before making for the other direction, not looking back once.

"Whatˋs your plan then? Will you just let him leave like that?"

"Iˋve long established my ways of keeping an eye on him from a distance. I couldnˋt guarantee for his physical well being today if I went after him." Mycroft kept walking at a breathtaking space. 

"Thatˋs a dead end." Greg muttered with a wheezy voice while keeping up with Mycroftˋs anger fuelled pace. He wasnˋt sure himself if he referred to the wall of a shabby backstreet coming up in front of them or the evening itself.

"I know." Mycroft jumped on a bin that groaned under his weight and then pulled himself up the damp wall in one swift movement.

"Government work my ass." Greg huffed watching on with admiration.

"Never said I had an office job. Come on, Iˋm looking forward to getting home, forget this ever happened."

He offered his hand to Greg who had climed the bins as well, now pulling up behind him.

"We could just get a taxi or you could make one of those cars appear out of the blue." He breathed out heavily as Mycroft took hold of a rain gutter and climbed the flat roof of the building."

"Boring."

 

They parted in front of Gregˋs door after a rather spectacular walk over the roofs of London. There had been little talking. Greg had watched the anger leave Mycroftˋs body with every step until he seemed empty and worn. They stared into the off for another few moments before Mycroft silently lifted his hand and turned to leave. Greg felt unable to respond in any way, his whole body sore with the even for him unusual amount of exercise and a strange mixture of painful melancholy and anger engrained deeply into his heart. For a second he wondered if he should have clarified his own standing towards Sherlockˋs accusations at some point but as he saw the older Holmes vanish down the street he had the distinct feeling he too preferred to keep things unspoken.

He rested his head on the door while trying to fit the key to the lock. "Beer, never again." he sighed fumbling helplessly with trembling fingers. When the door gave in, a giggle broke itself its way through him. "Boring." he tried to imitate Mycroftˋs voice and the memory of the soft baritone made thar hair on his arms stand.

 

Mycroft reached the gate of his house the moment the birds in the gardens around began to sing. The early morning air was filled with the scent of roses and freshly cut grass. He moved without a noise, the last thing he wanted was to discuss the events of the night with their mother. And he knew that it was showing on his face. The blue light of TV flickered in the hallway when he closed the door behind himself. Shedding the ridiculous jacket, he moved to the living room to find his mother snoring softly in an armchair. Someone had draped a blanket over her. 

"Youˋre back!" Leopoldˋs head appeared over the rest of the sofa, face smudged with something that looked like chocolate ice cream.

"What are you doing down here? You should have been in bed hours ago!" he took the half empty container from the boyˋs hands, straightening down his hair with the other.

"I couldnˋt sleep because I thought maybe you donˋt come back?"

"What could bring on such a ridiculous assumption?" he whispered, trying to rub off some of the dried crust of chocolate all around his face.

"Youˋre not the sort of person who goes out and I thought maybe it was an excuse to get away or maybe they found you as well and killed you." 

Mycroft avoided Leopoldˋs eyes as he picked him up regretting it immediatly as he was so much heavier than his sister.

"If ever Iˋm leaving, Iˋll let you know. And killing me is more of a job than those guys are up to."

"I just wondered, where Lissi and I should go if you get killed as well." Mycroft forced himself to walk on, up the stairs.

 

He awaited the arrival of Sunday morning in his study, facing the window with a beaker in hand that had refilled itself several times since the boy had finally agreed to staying in bed. He watched the street amongst the gardens come to life with staff and transporters delivering laundry and groceries. He watched his neighbours stretching for their early morning run, butlers and the occasional wife bringing in the newspaper and other mail, sharing friendly nods over the fence. He drowned the last sip when he heard his mother stir in the living room below and greeting his housekeeper who was coming in, on time as if she was moving on rails, a clockwork that no force on earth could stop or alter. This house, the town, his life, they appeared to be part of a very elaborate clock and he seemed the one wheel that refused to work in the way it was designed to, always afraid of being found out for cheating and plucked out to be replaced by a more reliable, functional substitute.

"Get a grip, self pity just doesnˋt suit you." he muttered to himself as he shuffled away towards the bathroom, determined to look presentable in a clean shirt once the children would turn up at breakfast table.

 

There werenˋt many parks he felt comfortable taking them to, he felt it wouldnˋt go down well in most areas to turn up at the playground with security. So they stuck to the one all his neighbours frequented with whom such measures went unnoticed. He found himself a bench where he could rest his head in the half shade, lack of sleep and drink had left his eyes and head sensitive to the bright sunshine. Lissi threw her jacket at him and started off towards the swings as soon as she could, it never took her long to find company, her happy and friendly ways made her a favourite among the girls her age. His mother had put her hair in two pixie tails that bounced at every step. He watched the swing take her higher and higher, she stretched her legs as if she hoped to reach the few fluffly clouds above by doing so. Heaven. The topic came up from time to time and he was more than uncomfortable with her questions. A mother on the other side of the sand box nodded at him in recognition and he threw her a tentative smile.

"You think I can jump from here?" Lissi had begun bending over backwards hanging her head upside down every time the swing neared its peak point."

"I'd rather you do not." He tried to look serious but she giggled and he couldn't surpress a smile.

Of course he considered it from time to time, tried to envision what their life would be like if he couldn't resist being selfish about it. He'd get Leopold a tutor to come in till he was accepted into one of the proper schools, see him through Eaton or Harrow, spend every second weekend with him shopping comic books. They would go to France in summer and the Alps for Christmas, play board games on the floor of his living room and maybe talk about all those things that needed to be talked about. Lissi would be in the care of a string of nannies with their professional affection, would have a pony at the stables outside town, would do ballet and maybe piano lessons on Wednesdays. He would be out most nights so late he could only wave her off to bed, sometimes gone for weeks and then there would be those awkward dinners they had had when his father had come back from his trips and they were all so estranged nobody dared to talk. Sometimes Leo would call because he had gotten into trouble or because he had failed that Latin exam again and there would only be his housekeeper to pick up the phone. And if he called back a little too late, Leo would worry that he had forgotten all about him or had gotten injured or worse just like he had every time when father hadn't called when he had promised to. Too much pain for the occasional pang of warm feeling.

"Can you give me a push, I want to go higher!" Lissi demanded, chanting from the swing. He neatly folded her jacket on the bench and slowly made his way towards her through the sand, happy to find her without melancholy that so often lingered over them both.

 

Greg was relieved to an improper degree when he found that Mycroft had never returned the jacket Sherlock had borrowed for him. After all it was his second best jacket and he definetely needed it back. Though it had suited Mycroft much better than he cared to admit. He lingered near the phone until the nervous twitch in his fingers got unbearable. He carefully closed the door of his office, making sure Donovan was nowhere in sight. When the Holmes' mother answered the phone he pinched his nose, of course he wasn't in, he was at work just like him.

"He has given me the number of his mobile device but it is for absolute emergencies only." she purred into the phone at him. "But I guess if you really need that jacket back, I'm sure he won't mind me giving this number. It's not like you would interrupt him at anything important, he didn't even take his bag with him today. Must be a slow day."

Greg was unsure how to answer, he had no idea how much Mrs Holmes was aware of their sons' tendencies of breaking into buildings and avoiding traffic jams by jumping from roof to roof, not to think of the exact line of work Mycroft found himself in. He hummed in vague agreement and jotted down the number. By his lunchtime the slip of paper was crumpled by being twisted and turned between his fingers in his pocket all day. He finally gave in and typed the number into his phone. It rang only twice before his call was taken.

"Mummey, I said absolute emergencies only!" He spoke loudly over some strange noise in the background, it sounded like someone was hoovering in his office.

"Um, sorry, this is Greg. Your mum..."

"Oh, hey. What did he do?"

"Who? Oh, Sherlock? No, haven't seen him since. I actually just.." Greg was quite certain he could see Mycroft roll his eyes and curse his mother for passing on the number.

"Oh, as much as I'd love a chat with you" the word chat sounded as if it felt very uncomfortable or unfamiliar to Mycroft's mouth, a foreign word he hardly ever used because the concept was nebulous, "this might be slightly inconvenient timing. I'm on a plane right now."

"Yes, well of course. Sorry again." The noise increased and it sounded as if he was walking through heavy wind.

"Your turn, Tristam!" someone yelled.

"Gotta jump, I mean go!" Mycroft yelled as the sounds increased and the line disconnected. a sudden mental image of Mycroft in a jump suit sparked up in his mind and caused a strange grin on his face that would haunt him all day.

 


	38. Of Fathers and Sons

If Sherlock could have chosen a moment in which he would have liked to meet his father again, this one would not have been anywhere up in the top five. He had applied and been accepted for a job as a bank clerk in one of the private banks in inner London that he suspected to be part of the scheme that caused Ayleen's husband to disappear and possibly get killed. Other than his father, he recognized him immediatly. The way he walked, the tone of his voice as it drifted towards his office, it alarmed every nerve in his body and so he ran a hand through his blond dyed and cut hair, rearranging the fake glasses on his nose. First he didn't dare to look him in the eyes as he greeted his father with a handshake and offered him a seat. Even if he had, the old Holmes seemed too occupied an distant to notice him, he kept fidling with the lock of his bag that he had on his lap, unwilling to discard it to the floor.

"So, how can I help you today Mr....Holmes?" He smiled at the man in what he hoped looked like a trained, professional smile of service staff.

"I would like to speak to Mr. Ronan again, he usually serves me."

"I'm very sorry Mr. Holmes, but Mr. Ronan had an accident. I'll try to be of help to you." Sherlock had seen the corpse that seemed to have fallen off the roof of a cheap appartment building, a rather big kitchen knife inconveniently placed through his heart.

"Right. Well, as you might know, I had my deposits invested in gilts for the last decade or so. He fumbled with a folder and produced several documents. It was now that he gave Sherlock the first proper look and sweat broke on Sherlock's forehead when he seemed to hesitate for a second but continued.

"Last month Mr. Ronan offered me to invest the money into a closed property fund, he was talking about a revenue of about ten percent. I would like to know what the balance of my account is by now."

Sherlock hesitated for a moment, looking at the greying hair of his father who once more had begun looking for a piece of paper in the depth of his bag. He finally produced a code and password for the account in question and Sherlock slowly started the computer. As the numbers flickered onto the screen, even his philosophic mind slowly came round to understanding the full impact of what lay in front of him. The investment had crashed and been reduced to a third of its original value. Without another word he wrote the remaining amount onto a clean piece of paper and slid it towards his father. The elderly man paled and his breath seemed to get stuck in his lungs. 

"I'm very sorry Mr. Holmes but after all this is a high risk form of investment."

"Well, Mr. Ronan certainly forgot to mention that when he talked about it to me." the old Holmes pressed through clenched teeth before drifting into a strange state of confusion and despair.

"Is...was this a large part of your savings that you invested?"

"The better half." Bernhard cleared his throat.

"Does your wife know about this?" There was no answer.

"Dad, you need to tell mummey." It was only then that he saw recognition dawn on his father.

"Sherlock? For goodness sake, is this one of your stupid pranks?"

"No, I work here."

"Since when?"

"Since Mr. Ronan was murdered for dissatisfying service to some of his customers. You don't seem to be the only one he tricked into risky investments." His father didn't seem to hear him or understand. He kept staring at his son.

"I can't possibly tell her, she'll divorce me, after all I allowed myself lately." There was another silence while they looked at each other, he seemed to chart the face of the son he hadn't seen in more than a year. Sherlock felt a sad feeling creep up his throat and clench his heart.

"How's your brother? He hasn't talked to me since I moved."

And suddenly he had the urge to grab the man by his tie and shake him. Instead he drummed his fingers on the desk.

"Doing well for himself. We...sometimes we work together."

"Oh? I had hoped he would change his mind about the job at the embassy, he had quite a career before him there."

"I work for his department at the moment, that's why I'm here, see we are trying to get to the bottom of this whole...affair." Sherlock's cheeks glowed. He knew he shouldn't be talking about the matter here, who knew who was listening on but the words just fell out of his mouth, a stream of evidence of his doings and achievements as he hoped one would spark approval in his father's face.

"You've got his number? Before I get your mother all scared, I'd like Myc to pass his judgment on the state of affairs. Maybe it isn't as bad as you make it look." He nodded towards the computer screen.

Without another word Sherlock scribbled the number on the back of the slip of paper and opened the door for his father, silently asking him to leave.

 

Clara called him as he was about to leave the office for the evening. 

"I'm just about to close the door behind me." he sang into the phone while slipping into his jacket.

"Are you aware that there are two men in your flat who are yelling at each other at the top of their voices?"

"Sherlock and Myc?"

"Sherlock and the other one didn't bother to introduce himself when he opened the door to himself. Both say they came to return jackets you borrowed them?" Her voice wavered between annoyance and confusion. 

"Just don't get involved, I'll hurry."

"Greg, your life is a joke." she sighed, hanging up.

 

The plan had been to throw them out with the full force of his authority. If only to prove to Clara he was still in charge of some of the things happening in his life. Why the Holmes brothers assumed he was okay with being dragged into their mad little adventures and feuds was beyond him. It simply wasn't possible to combine the normal life he wanted for himself with climbing roofs on Saturday nights after meetings with brightly dressed mafia bosses. He was a grown man and it was about time to behave accordingly. So he took a deep breath before entering the battle field. Clara had fled the scene to her own place, at least that was what the sticky note on the mirror in his small hallway said. It also told him not to call again until he was back in charge of his life and his flat.

Mycroft stood near the bedroom door, dressed in a three piece suit, hands folded behind his back. Greg had a flashback of the young man jumping ot of a plane. The fantasy set his heart racing, an effect further enhanced by the look Mycroft gave him, a look burdened with a graveness that made him turn protective immediatly.

Sherlock slouched on the couch, a couch Greg kept propped with pillows and a blanket so it was always awaiting and welcoming the younger Holmes when he decided to wander in uninvited, either picking the lock or climbing in through one of the windows. The boy that should no longer be a boy, looked distressed and lost, eyes reddened. His plan to simply ask them to leave faltered and collapsed at the sight.

"I will not tolerate any violence or insults, is that understood?" he hissed at them giving them both his best version of a stern look. Mycroft lifted one of his well groomed eyebrows at him and Sherlock rolled his eyes behind long, wet lashes. In the end he was reduced to an onlooker that was sometimes adressed without a chance to actually speak. He sat at his kitchen table while the two brothers paced the room like two feline predators in a cage too small. It took him some time to piece together the story from the accusations the two threw at each other but he realized quickly enough that this was about more than just Sherlock's lackings in social behaviour and Mycroft's obsession with exercising control.

"He jeopardises mummey's money while cheating on her with the woman he fathered a child with during their messed up marriage and still you defend him? Everybody else would have fallen out of your grace years ago!" Sherlock no longer yelled, his voice was hoarse, his posture exhausted. Mycroft kept a sad stare at his brother before looking into the half distance, staring at something only he could see.

"It's family. One must try and keep it together." the older Holmes spoke under his breath, a mantra he had been repeating over and over in defence of every shocking detail about their parents Sherlock had fired at his stony and cool exterior.

There was a long silence before Mycroft spoke again in a voice that left no room for discussion. It was with the conviction of a martyr that he informed his brother of the plan at hand: "I'm going to transfer enough of my savings to make up for some of his loss and nothing of this will ever be mentioned to mummey. I will not tolerate her to be upset any further by his escapades. In return I'm going to demand of him they try to work out their problems."

"It won't earn you the slap on the back you are hoping for from him. The more you subject yourself to him, the less he will think of you." Sherlock had raised his voice with the last of his strength as Mycroft had reached for his brolly, slowly approaching the door. He stopped with his hand on the handle.

"Gambling for his affection by drugging yourself and opposing him to the point of self-harm will not be successful either."

"Where did you get the idea you have the right to patronise me and mummey? I'm not a toddler any more that you can lure into the library so I won't hear their fights. It never worked by the way. I knew you were lying to me even back then. And that's what made me hate you most. Don't lie to me because you think I can't take it. It's so...disrespectful and I'm your equal and so is she." As Sherlock spoke his bitter plea Greg believed he could see him age before his eyes. The boyish stroppiness had vanished and was replaced by an open honesty that left the man raw and vulnerable. He held his breath, very aware of being an unwanted witness to a very intimate moment. Mycroft's hand was still on the handle and he wouldn't turn back to face Sherlock when he eventually spoke.

"I cared for you and protected you the best way I knew how to. The way I would have wished someone to look after me. I apologise I failed you, rest assured it hurts me deeply to know I did." He opened the door just to face Clara who had been about to put the key into the lock, apparently having changed her mind about punishing him with her absence. Greg felt nausea rising at the thought she would be witnessing this.

"I must apologise to you as well Clara, for interrupting and intruding your private life. It shall not happen again." Mycroft muttered and nodded at Greg just before he was gone.

 


	39. Stray Cats

The rain was heavy outside but his mother insisted on keeping the door towards the garden half open, she and the children had made the acquaintance of a stray cat the other day and still hoped it would come back to find shelter from the monsoonlike rain. Mycroft watched Leopold rearranging the soft silk cushions of the sofa and some of his mother's cardigans into a cave around his sister, telling her it wasn't save to come out until it would stop to rain. He smirked at the cheap trick of keeping her out of his way from the safety of his armchair, half hidden behind a newspaper. The girl didn't protest, eyes already heavy, there was a good chance she would fall asleep in the mess of soft fabrics around her.  
"Finished your homework?" he muttered at the boy who placed himself on the floor, propped against the side of the armchair in an attempt to take advantage of the cone of light that fell from Mycroft's reading light on the coffee table.  
Leopold rolled his eyes but nodded, he had not been amused when Mycroft had declared it time to get back in some sort of school work and introduced a tutor coming in for him every morning but Sundays. Though he kept his eyes on the paper in front of him, Mycroft's thoughts were with Sherlock. Their last meeting had left him feeling void and aching. Unable to bring himself to switch into the video material that was constantly streamed to his computer, he lived in constant fear of the ringing of the phone. The moment Sherlock would force reconciliation the only way he knew how to. So far the hellish device had held its peace but for a short conversation between his parents who had arranged to meet to discuss matters. Since then his mother had disappeared into the kitchen, producing indecent amounts of cake and biscuits, much to the distress of his housekeeper who found herself challenged in her very own territory.

Sherlock hardly felt the rain any more, soaked to the bone already, it hardly made a difference. After a short stare competition with one of Mycroft's security staff he now was left in peace watching his brother through the half open french window. He seemed peaceful, unshaken by everything that had been said. He watched him bend towards the boy at his feet, pointing at something in the book he held. He imagined that he would be whispering so not to disturb the girl half asleep in the other corner. Mycroft's eyes passed over her with badly hidden fondness every now and then. He probably would have been accepted into the warmth of the room without another word if he decided to cross the lawn and stoop open the half open door, he probably would be tolerated if he placed himself on the other side of Mycroft's chair and joined their discussion of whatever there was in that book. That was how it worked, silence was cast over anything uncomfortable to speak of, Mycroft cleaning up the messes between them in silence with unfaltering efficency. His mother's figure suddenly seperated itself from the shadows of the adjoining room, coming closer to the french window. She opened the door further and Sherlock stepped back a little more, melting into the stem of a tree, the wet bark a similar colour of that of his coat. Her eyes cast a look over the garden, she was looking for someone it seemed. Sherlock waited, following her eyes and gaze that came closer but passed him, not stopping, he went unnoticed. Mycroft heaved himself from the chair, his body shrunken as if all his muscles felt sore. He placed a hand on his mother's shoulder, slowly drawing her away from the door before closing it tightly without another look into the garden. The curtains were drawn tightly and the audience left, suddenly feeling the cold creap up.

"He wasn't home." Sherlock snapped when met with Molly's inquisitive stare at her door. He knew she wouldn't believe him but he set his jaw and slipped past her into the sickening cosiness of her living room.  
"I'm sure he is as sorry as you are." She passed him a towel and he began rubbing his curls.  
"You're naivite is sickening. I tried so leave me in peace."  
She poured tea into one of her tiny bright blue cups with white dots and a pink ribbon running along the middle. He wrinkled his nose with disgust but emptied it with one huge swallow. She watched him before picking up the dripping coat he had thrown onto her white, furry rug. As she went to hang it over the bath tub, he curled into a tight ball in the middle of her bed, resting his wet socks on her pillow. She crossed her arms before her chest but, to his great disappointment, wouldn' t comment before withdrawing to the other room to watch another episode of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  
"That's unrealistic smut that will rot your brain even further!" he commented in a last attempt to raise her annoyance as Mr Darcy kissed someone's hand at a ball. Molly blushed and changed the channel to Newsnight.

The brothers only met on neutral grounds, there was always someone else present when Sherlock informed about his findings. With a guilty feeling in his stomach, Mycroft signed the papers that would send his brother to Brazil once more. Sherlock accepted the mission without any visible emotion. His brother's office seemed to become more spacious and filled with more staff every time he came here. Q seemed to be one of the few constant in the setting around Mycroft. And it was her that placed a hand on his arm when he turned to leave. She walked some of the way down the hallway with him before beginning to speak.  
"I know it is nothing of my business but take it from someone who is old enough to know: don't leave without reconciling with him. Though he never says it, there is nothing and no one more important in his life."  
Sherlock huffed. "Don't you think it is a little unprofessional to compensate your loss by taking special interest in Mycroft's welfare? To use his augmented need of parental approval for your own aims?"  
The pain in her face upon hearing him speak the truth no one else ever dared to address in her presence only lasted a flicker of a second before being washed away by another of her warm, motherly smiles.  
"You're right. I have no right to get involved." She smoothed down her blouse in a way he had Mycroft noticed doing lately. Subconscious bonding he thought before taking the opportunity for escape.

Meetings between him and colleagues were rare mostly because their schedules seldomly ever matched. Thus the celebration of the save return of one of them was a special and memorable occasion. An occasion for which he had treated himself to a new suit and a professional shave. He arrived at the door indicated as his pocket watch gave its melodious ring. He hadn't touched the door bell yet when the door was opened and music and warm light surrounded him. He used to dread such gatherings, the noncommital chatter, the fake smile, the boasting. A shudder went through him whenever he thought of the long and tedious evenings at the embassy. He had never felt more lonely than in the large crowd of half familiar faces.  
Around the table they avoided names and private details. As dessert was served his cheeks ached from laughing. Something he hadn't done done very often lately. They had put him opposite of Collin, at least that was what he called himself. Whenever he ran his fingers over his bow tie as he laughed or threw him a smile when reaching for the bread, he thought of Timothy. By the end of the night the wine and the endorphines had muddled into a strange mixture that left him awfully sentimental as conversation slowly trickled and died down. Not wanting to be the last to leave, painfully aware it could appear needy, he joined a group of others leaving some time after midnight. It took some time before they finally managed to part and got into their cars. He smiled to himself for a moment and turned the handle of his umbrella in his hands before clearing his throat and nodding the driver to return him home.  
His grin froze when his father's car on his porch came into sight. He straightened but hesitated to get out of the car. Several scenarios were possible and having had more than the usual glass at dinner his mind neeeded a moment to process and rank them according to their probability. The situation his father found himself in was a weak position for negotiation so he probably was keen on avoiding any more conflict with him or his mother. It was a question of wording his conditions for helping him to restore normality.  
"Sir?" The driver gave him a hesitant and worried look which he answered with a small nod.  
"Thank you and good night."  
He opened the door carefully and took in the overall mood between his parents from the small wifts of conversation blowing towards him from the kitchen. It was an art he had perfected early, once being essential to his and Sherlock's emotional survival. His mother's voice flowed in an even pattern, not too high, uninterrupted. He breathed out carefully and made himself felt by droppinig his keys in the bowl by the door.  
His mother's head popped into the hallway, slightly flushed but composed.  
"Myc, I didn't expect you this early. Your father is here." He smiled at her dispensing of telling her she was stating the obvious. He gave him a short greeting, his father leaning jovially against the kitchen counter.  
"Would you have a coffee with us?" She reached for another cup in the cupboard but Mycroft shook his head, resting his hand on her shoulder for a moment. Why interrupt her hopeful mood with his undeniable anticipation of further complications.  
"I'm rather tired mummey, it's been a long night. Will you be at the club for lunch tomorrow?" he addressed his father, carefully rearranging the cups on the cupboard.  
"Yes, I'd appreciate having a chance to talk, hear how you are doing, son?" Mycroft nodded, loooking at his shoes. He hated when his victims were so unsuspecting. Defenselessness always left a bitter aftertaste in his victories.  
"I shall have breakfast ready for you." his mother chirped as he went up the stairs.  
"Don't put yourself into a fuss, mummey, Ginny will be in." he turned back once more and pressed a kiss onto her head.  
"Good night Mycroft!" Her cheerfulness turned his stomach.


	40. Turmoils in a Dying Stream

It still felt like being asked into the headmaster's office when he saw his father lounging in one of he chairs of the silent room at their club. Mycroft passed him and gave him a nod, asking him to follow to a seperate room. His father's attempt of starting a friendly conversation were met by Mycroft's cold professionalism. All this time his fingers flexed around the binder that contained his weapon, all the material Sherlock had collected about their father supported by some of his own findings. The excerpts from Irene's homepage should suffice to turn this into a winning hand. 

"So I think you should no longer be forced to share your house with your mother. We had a talk yesterday and I think we came to an agreement well enough for her to come back. He mustered his father who happily drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. Mycroft cleared his throat to win time.

"Sherlock told me about your accidental meeting in the bank. After long consideration I decided not to disclose information about your misdoing to mother though I agree with Sherlock it would have been your responsibility to include her in such decisions in the first place. After all it is her inheritance you are gambling with." The first move made, he stapled his hands in front of his chin, watching his father over the table, prepared to crush any counter charge. Bernhard needed his support and approval if he hoped to win his mother's trust back completely.

"I see. Knowing you, such support comes at a price." Bernhards face had turned cold and inert.

Mycroft pondered a reply but decided against it, sticking to the script he had established in the solitude of his bed the night before.

"You will promise me no such solo effort with regard to the financial underpinngins of this family will happen again. Any investment that exceeds what you have earned in the respective year will be run past my accountant."

His father huffed. 

"You try to regulate me with regard to my own finances because I have been tricked once? Like many others, by the way." Mycroft did not respond to the shift of atmosphere. This was business, he would not get caught in the emotional pitfalls this negotiation offered.

"My concern is not limited to this single incident. It only encouraged me to have a look at family finance in general."

He crossed his legs, bopping the upper one up and down as he searched through the papers in his binder before fanning them out on the coffee table in front of them.

"Your little nostalgic adventure with your backup family has been rather costly and has been paid for from family funds." He pointed to several sums on the accounts current he had marked in bright colours. When his father failed to come up with a reply, he turned the pages once more. "I have also found some extraordinary items I have trouble allocating. I marked them in pink." 

Bernhard took hold of the pages and gave him an annoyed look. "I have no idea what you think gives you the right ..."

"Pink seemed fitting, don't you think? Though I'm not sure she'd agree." He watched the old man squirm and stretched the pause towards the unbearable by waiting for a reply to his rhetorical question.

"So you had no trouble allocating them after all."

"It took me a while to establish the pattern and match it with my insights into your recently established...habits."

"I wonder what your boss would say if she knew about your misuse of government resources for your private vendetta against me."

"It seems rather foolish to provoke me, father mine, you will find me in a comfortable position for this dispute. The young lady you visit with astounding regularity though your dense schedule often wouldn't allow a holiday or even a weekend with your wife, was so kind as to share pictures of your...activities with one of my agents. Would you take my word for it that I am indeed in their possession or would you like to have a look? I'm sure some would describe them as having a certain artistic value, though I'm not sure mummey would manage to see it that way."

His father's breathing had become ragged, he could see rage boil under the surface.

"I take your unsual lack of reply as approval to the terms and conditions for my prolonged silence towards mother and Sherlock. You will think about your spending habits with more consideration towards them and you will refrain from any further visits to Irene. And you will engage in marriage counselling with mother, your dedication and progress will be monitored."

"This is...how dare you?"

"Of course you are always free to choose the other option. One word from you and mummey will be served notice on your activities of recent date. It's up to you, father mine. I'm only trying to be of help." Mycroft slowly gathered his material and got ready to leave.

"You apparently believe me to be a villain of the worst sort. Why don't you just tell your mother about what you know and get rid of me? It would be nothing for you to ruin me completely. In her eyes, anyway."

Mycroft rearranged his tie in the reflection of the glass door of a showcase. It presented an odd collection of crockery famous members had eaten from in prominent moments in history. Churchill's cup still showed a rim of strong, black tea. He admired it for a second, composing his face once more.

"I try to keep the losses for those involved at a minimum. Emotionally as well as with regard to reputation. On top of that, a scandal of this size would certainly hinder my professional progress. I'm sure you understand." Satisfied with the knot of his tie, he nodded at his father's crumbled face. "Good day, Mr. Holmes." and with a swirl of his umbrella, he was gone.

 

There had been no fights between him and Clara since Sherlock had drifted off towards Brazil. Everything returned to its normal ways, like a river slowly shrinking back into its bed after the turmoils of a flood. At first there had been relief. Nights passing without calls from one of the brothers in distress, his door staying firmly closed when he locked it before going to bed at night. The sheets and blankets on the couch unwrinkled until one morning they had been moved out of sight before he was up.They went out and Clara sometimes rested her head on his shoulder when they walked side by side. Sometimes he had nightmares, seeing corpses from cases gone by. When he woke, his mouth was dry as if he was parching, his body heated as if he had walked the desert. She rested her hand on his chest to calm him and he covered it with his own hoping to frighten away the uneasy feeling that his stream wasn't just shrinking, it was drying up, disappearing in the dust and regularities of life.

 

Anderson had given him the tickets, he had been given them by a friend in the vice squad who in turn had been given them by his inlaws. They were good seats and it seemed a sin to waste them and Clara would probably enjoy an upmarket activity like this. Her eyes gave a little sparkle when he left them on her kitchen table without another word and she came over and kissed his cheek while he was peeling the potatoes.

He already felt slightly annoyed and out of place as he waited in line to hang their coats at the cloakroom. People were talking in hushed voices, moved in ways that made him feel like a clumsy bear trying to manoevre its way through a shop full of expensive glass ware. Clare stood in the middle of the grand voyer, admiring the chandeliers above as she held on to the tiny purse she had borrowed from a friend for the occasion and had been all excited about for reasons he had forgotten. So when she took his arm with a beaming smile he hid it all inside.

She talked about gossip from her office and he answered the best way he could but somehow he was far away thinking about water circling before disappearing in the drain. He felt numb and foreign and yearning for somewhere he knew not. That's when he missed his queue to disagree when she talked about the waste of paying rent for two flats again which he only noticed when she patted his hand with a victorious smile, probably content with her slow progress of grinding his resistance down. Grinding it down into sand that would be washed away by the stream to disappear in the black nothingness of the drain.

 

He didn't see him until the intermission. Clara had wandered off to get a drink and probably watch people and he was left in their seats to guard the tiny purse. He looked around as people got up and greeted friends, discussed the first halftime or whatever it was to be called. His eyes found him sitting in the ranks above and slightly behind them. The red hair refused to melt with its surroundings, his pale face glowing like a lighthouse in a stormy night to him. He didn't think him attractive in any of the usual ways, not like Sherlock whom you were allowed to describe as handsome without making yourself suspicious at the yard. Mycroft was different. It lay under the surface, an attractiveness you couldn't nail down but nevertheless were forced to perceive. Mycroft seemed lost in his thoughts, eyes fixed at a point above the murmuring sea of the crowd. Like a captain on deck of his ship, keeping watch and ward as his crew was sleeping. For a moment he thought he could see the reflection of a starlit sky on the man's face, could see a soft breeze tussle the soft hair on his forehead. It wasn't a breeze but the hand of a slightly younger man who had come into the box and woke the elder Holmes from his trance with the playful gesture. He didn't seem to mind and answered with a smirked comment. He had never wasted a thought on whether Mycroft had friends, a life apart from his brother. He had foolishly assumed he would have known if he did. After all he had children, he probably hadn't just found them somewhere, he scolded himself as he turned back towards the stage. He probably had never told him because he was embarrassed of him in front of his friends, the mother of those children. Of the way he had behaved on their nights out. Flirting with everything moving whenever tipsy was a habit he was determined to shed soon. Or maybe he just wasn't important enough to be informed about such facts, a supporting role in the drama the Holmes brothers called life. Clara returned to her seat and so he missed the arrival of another woman in Mycroft's box who kissed the hair tussler on the cheek before getting in her chair between them.

 


	41. Exceptions

"Did Mycroft Holmes send you?" Greg hadn't noticed the cars in front of his house until one of them got scratched when the neighbour's daughter fell against it with her bike and bruised her knees. The driver had hesitantly got out to check on the kid and his attention was drawn. Now he leaned into the car's opened window, trying to intimidate the driver or agent into giving up at least the most obvious of information. In vain.

"Why does he have my house watched?" The man stared ahead.

"Listen, I just want to know if I have reason to lock the door twice at night!" Greg crossed his arms keeping up the stare.

"All right, I shall ask him myself." he sighed eventually as the window was drawn up again. He stayed in his spot for a moment, looking gingerly around himself until he finally made a decision and marched towards the subway."Two can play this game, Holmes!" he muttered, his steps becoming more determined.

He first tried his house, as it was Saturday but the car was gone and in the hour he watched the entrance he only saw the changing of the colours and his housekeeper taking out the trash before leaving for the day. He hurried to cross the street and caught up with her quickly. She knew him and gave him a friendly smile while rummaging her bag for her oyster card.

"I was hoping to speak to Mycroft. Is he in?"

"Ah, no, Mr. Lestrade, he had planned on having dinner in town. You could always try at his club, it is usually a safe bet when he has a lot of work." she smiled at him with winning friendliness and once again he wondered how much people around Mycroft knew about him. He waved at her and hurried ahead towards the station once more, though he couldn't resist to wave at security as well that did their best not to notice him.

As he arrived at the unobtrusive entrance to the Diogenes Club, he realized his bravery was failing him. He had no good reason to go up to the man in the grey top head and ask to be taken to see Mr Holmes. Standing outside waiting for him to appear made him feel like a stalker. What did he expect to see anyway? And if he asked Mycroft for a straight answer about why his place was being watched he didn't expect to receive anything but a diplomatically formulated lie. The nights they had gone out together had been the exception from the rule, this was Mycroft's reality and he was far from it. Shame began running through him as another black car pulled up in front of the door and another good looking man about Mycroft's age got out. The door was held open for him and he vanished through the door Greg felt he should never be allowed to pass. As realisation dawned, stubborness crept up from the depth of his mind. Mycroft knew all his secrets, probably got a report every morning about when he left the flat, what he had at the canteen, how many times he had made a dirty joke about Anderson in the last week. It was only fair he should try and reset the equilibrium. So he crossed his arms and placed himself in a street cafe right accross the street. 

The red hair blinded him about three coffees and a croissant later, he was accompanied by two other men, they seemed to enjoy their conversation as they lingered on the doorstep. Though they weren't exactly wearing the same clothes, they looked alike somehow. One of them put a hand on Mycroft's shoulder as he nodded towards the street and another car materialised out of the blue. Greg searched his pockets and threw a few banknotes at the waiter, already looking for a taxi. He would say a sentence tonight he had always wanted to say as a child:" Follow the black car in front of us, please." he told the driver, handing him the remaining notes in his hand.

 

They had driven towards another unsuspicious building, the three men had entered but Mycroft had left just minutes later, his mobile phone pressed to his ear as he got into a car once more. 

"Which of those you think it is?" the driver adressed him as they once more followed the black car in considerable distance.

"Pardon?"

"He's cheating on you with?"

"Oh, no. We're not..."

"So, what is this about? You're not blackmailing him or something, listen I really don't wanna get involved in any nasty stuff."

"No, don't worry, I ahm. Police." He waved his ID at the driver who let out an audible breath.

"A copper? Don't you have your own transportation any more, ey?"

Greg mumbled something nonsensical about undercover and cuts to the budget but the cab driver seemed appeased enough not to care any more. As they arrived at an office building, he thanked and got out of the car. Mycroft held a little card up to a reader at the entry and it opened but he stepped back as if realizing he had forgotten something and turned back towards the street, walking with augmenting pace. Greg zick zacked his way through the crowd, anxious as he lost sight of the redhead twice at unexpected turns. His heart was thumbing in his ears and adrenaline was rushing through him even as his brain tried to convince him this was absolute madness. "Not the roof again, please!" he swore as Mycroft neared a street of abandoned buildings. His jeans were fresh from the wash and too stiff to allow any climbing. But Mycroft passed the half ruins and constructions sights. They reached more frequented streets again soon, Greg's legs began to protest. As Mycroft stopped, he realized they had almost come full circle. The minor position in the government who certainly did not have a desk job slowed down and entered a bar in the souterrain, the sort of place investment bankers spend their knocking-off time with expensive wine and a cigar. Greg stopped as well, realising there was no way he could enter the place without being seen. The night was turning colder and he was wearing only a thin jacket as the original plan had been a quick trip to the shops. He suddenly remembered he should have called Clara at some point. He quickly made up his mind he would blame it on a case. Just as he was about to drop his head in shame at the foolishness of the whole endevour and turn towards the next tube station, he heard the low, soft voice call out his name.

"Are you planning on staying out there until I leave, because I had planned on taking my time in here and you seem unsuitably dressed for the season."

Greg felt like that one time his mother had caught him wanking and given him a talk about the moral implications of pornography afterwards. The two men stared at each other for a long moment.

"It's getting cold Mr. Lestrade! Make up your mind!" Mycroft opened the door even further, stepping aside so he could pass him by. Greg dropped his head like a schoolboy and dogtrotted inside.

The place was empty but for them and a waiter behind the bar, polishing glasses. Mycroft fought hard to keep his posture relaxed. An inspector gone mad was the last hting he needed after a day like this. He shifted papers on the table he had been sitting at, and nodded for another cup of tea.

Greg looked like he was expecting to be taken outthe back and shot. Mycroft attempted a grin in order to relax the mood but failed miserably. It looked much more like a monster in a horrormovie had found the perfect victim.

"Excuse me for just asking bluntly, I'm not in the constitution for any more chit chat. Why are you following me around town in a what you believe to be an unobtrusive manner?"

"You knew all this time?" Greg groaned and rubbed his face.

His flushing ears forced a laugh from Mycroft. "Dah!" he leaned back and watched shock wash over the inspector's face. "That is my job, sort of. And I pride myself being not a complete failure at it. I just hope this is not realted to any alcohol infused mood again because then I would start to worry about your drinking habits."

"What? No. You don't actually believe that crap your brother drools about me, do you?"

Mycroft lifted an eyebrow in a way only he could and Greg felt dizzy. "My brother has many faults but he hardly ever goes wrong when it gets to interpreting other people's habits. But we are drifting. Why are you folowing me Mr Lestrade?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

It was Mycroft's turn to pick up the tea spoon and stir while staring into its depths.

"I see."

The waiter used the lull in the conversation to place another cup in front of Greg. Mycroft watched him plunge three lumps of sugar as he broke the silence.

"It was a mere measure of caution. Sherlock is working on rather difficult territory at the moment and the people he is working at have a notorious habit of including uninvolved, third parties. You seemed to be the closest shot to a friend he got, so...I'm also having security on that young woman whose flat he frequents when you and he are in rough waters again.

Greg licked his spoon, watching Mycroft who seemed to follow his every movement with his eyes.

"Revenge. " he said when he popped the spoon out of his mouth.

"Pardon?" 

"Revenge. I followed you around out of revenge. I felt shit when I noticed you had me under surveillance without telling me. Not exactly the politest thing to do. And why? You didn't trust me? You could have just called me and said look mate there's a car outside but don't worry about it."

MycroftIs larynx bopped twice before he dared to speak again. "You're right. I didn't trust you. I thought it wiser to keep you in the dark. Mostly because of Clara. She doesn't seem the most cold blooded creature. Additionally, I got the impression she does not approve of you having contact with you. So I thought it beneficial to your domestic...peace to keep in the background."

Greg fell into the cushions of his chair and closed his eyes. Of course he had had a reason. The brothers' always had a logical justification for their doings. "And where did you get that impression? Surely you must understand she would be irritated that you and Sherlock broke into my appartment, took no notice of her and started a fight with each other of epic dimensions."

Mycroft ran a finger around the ring of his cup, changing direction after three turns. Tipping the handle twice with his index finger, he finally looked at him again. "I saw you at the theatre. When I greeted her in the lobby, she was rather repudiating.Told me not to spoil your evening with my ridiculous problems again."

"I'm sorry. I'm certain she didn't mean it quite as harsh. She has a tendency to think I need protection."

Silence fell as a group of customers entered. Their lively conversation filled the entire room. Mycroft had the uneasy feeling that Clara's opposition towards him and his brother was not entirely as altruistic as Greg chose to interpret it. For what he saw between them, Mycroft had long chosen to ignore rigorously. The last hting his life needed was further complication.

"So, who were you there with?" Greg waited for him to come back from a far away place. 

"Uhm, a cousin of mine. He's in town for a visit. With his wife."

"He's staying with you then?"

Mycroft stopped for a second, glancing his face once over. "Greg, why are you so interested?"

"Dunno, I've known you for a decade now and managed to overlook the fact you have children. I know nothing about you."

This finally produced a smile on Mycroft's face. "You've known me a decade. Leo is ten. You do the math. You really think I had time to father a child back then?"

"It's not such a time consuming activity I'm told. So, if you're not the father, who is and who is the mother?"

"I'd rather not." Mycroft grew uneasy.

"You loved her?" Greg managed to speak fairly calm over the breathlessness that got hold of him. Mycroft watched the other group, one of the women had broken into hysterical laughter. She leaned into a friend for support who was laughing as well.

"No. Not really my area."

"Never?"

"Better that way."


	42. Confessions of Sentiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just came back from my first proper trip to London and made a really funny/nice discovery in Westminster Abbey: There is a memorial in there for some Admiral (Charles) Holmes and and Admiral Watson. If anyone feels like using this for a prompt, I'd love to read it. They both are depicted in Roman armour but actually died in the 18th century as far as I could see.

There had been no official sign or even a look between them but at some point they both reached for their coats and silently made for the door. Greg glanced back at the waiter for a chance to pay but Mycroft waved him on, nodding at the man behind the bar in familiartity.

"Would you like a lift home?" Mycroft fiddled with his mobile phone. "Seems you have done enough running today."

Greg rolled his eyes. "Yes, you have every reason to rub it in. I don't know what got into me there. It's just... sometimes I feel like suffocating. Being around you always is exciting, one evening often brings me through a couple of weeks without feeling like being buried alive." He stared ahead determinedly. Speaking it made it feel so much more real and he really had to fight off the tears. As if he hadn't embarrassed himself enough today.

Mycroft had looked up from his phone, he could feel his pale eyes wander over his profile, stopping very close to where a stubborn drop of water insisted on swelling up.

"I don't know what to say." Mycroft's voice sounded flat.

"Forget it. I'm not myself just now. No idea what is going on. Listen, thanks and sorry again. I just think I'll walk. Seems I could use the air." Instead of starting to walk away, he rolled an empty tin into a pool of dirty water on the pavement. "Again, you manage to pull my dirtiest secrets out of me without ever even giving a glimpse of yourself. Shit." Greg laughed, throwing his head back in a feeble attempt to keep those drops of salty water where they belonged.

"Mycroft pocketed his mobile and crossed his arms in front of his chest, never taking his eyes of the faltering man.

"I met my father today for the first time in months. I'm basically blackmailing him into keeping up the marriage with mother."

Greg stared at him in complete confusion. Mycroft held his gaze, suddenly growing a confidence he hadn't felt in a long time. "I hate to lose control. It's my one, constant fear. That's why I have cameras installed in my brother's flat and broke the one functioning relationship with another human being he ever had. I sent him off on a mission few people would have agreed to go on, accepting the risk of losing him without another thought. I'm down to my third secretary since I have started work at the ministry because they refuse to work for me after a few couple of weeks. On bad days a misplaced comma can get me into a fit of rage. My colleagues call me the iceman because even when I stood next to the corpse of the mother of those two children in a pool of her blood, I was unable to shed a single tear. You think that pays my debt of secrets?"

Greg ran his hand through his hair twice, staring at the man. The young lad that had stumbled into his office about ten years ago in search for his younger brother. The young man that efficiently sorted everybody's problems, seemed always on top of things and two thoughts ahead of everybody else.

"It looks a lot prettier from the outside than it feels being stuck in it. So go, get home with Clara." Mycroft's voice had almost turned pleading, he lifted his hand and a black car slowly approached them. Without turning around again, he made for the car. Greg watched it pull off, the engine a mere purring sound. The street noise returned to his consciousness as it vanished in the mist of the night.

 

They hadn't been driving for more than ten minutes before he felt the panic wailing up in him. He didn't need to ask the driver to stop, knowing the symptoms he parked at the next opportunity as Mycroft leaned back and unfastened his tie. A mere psychological gesture, he knew that wasn't what blocked his breathing. He more or less fell out of the car when he managed to open the door, taking deep but ragged breaths of late night air. Leaning his head on the cold metal of the car's roof, he forced his heart to slow down. 

"Home Sir?" Mycroft didn't answer as he closed the door again.

"You are driving others as well, aren't you?"

"Yes Sir."

"Have you ever taken anyone to see ahm, someone calling herself the woman?"

"I couldn't possibly tell you, Sir, but if you'd ask me whether I know her address, the answer would be affirmative."

Mycroft nodded, looking out of the window for a long time.

 

The house looked like all the others in the street. Very much like his own, to be precise. He checked the windows and finding some of them illuminated, he got out of the car. 

"Would you like me to wait, Sir?"

"Yes, please, I shan't be long."

"Certainly."

Mycroft rang the doorbell that held no name and waited for a fair amount of time before hearing feet shuffle inside. He hadn't expected her to answer the door in person and certainly not naked. Recognition sparked in her eyes immediatly and she opened the door far enough for him to slip inside. He lingered in the hallway, looking at the stately interior with well hidden awe.

"This is an indecent hour to call on a lady, Mr. Holmes." she chirped, dancing her way to the living room. He knew her well enough to know she was hiding confusion.

"Not any more indecent than for a lady to answer the door naked."

She turned on her bare feet and faced him full on, smiling. "Touché, sweetheart."

His heart gave an unpleasant leap at the endearment.

He settled in an armchair near the fireplace without waiting for permission. She raised an eyebrow at it but got in the chair opposite, propping her legs on the armrest. They looked at each other, like children daring the other to blink first.

"So, satisfy my curiosity. What brings you to my doorstep on a Saturday night? I usually make appointments. You were lucky I had a short notice cancellation tonight. 

"How inconvenient. An elderly gentleman by any chance? Used to be a regular but has informed you he will not be able to frequent your services any more?"

She paled just the slightest bit and straightened herself in her seat.

"I know you are a clever boy but how could you possibly know?"

"Let me make up for your loss by taking over his appointment and I might tell you afterwards." He decidedly ignored the way her legs parted for a second before she crossed them again, leaning her elbows on her knees.

"And what would you suggest how we pass the time together?"

"Talk. Let's start with talking." He unbuttoned his coat and dropped the umbrella next to the chair. Then he passed her his coat and she slipped into it before getting back in her seat looking at him expectantly upon the sharp edge in his voice.

 

Sha had had appointments at the police department that had been more passionate. It seemed Mycroft was working his way through a catalogue of questions he had thought about for a long time. And still, she remembered what had drawn her to his younger version. That seemed to be the one topic that was the uppermost in his mind. 

"If you could just summmarize for me the reason you decided to leave me and chose this way of earning your living." For a second she waited for him to produce a notebook to write down her answer. She sighed and slumped forward in her chair. 

"If I had stayed with you my entire life seemed to be mapped out already. I wasn't too keen on being someone's wife who you would take to parties in the evening and leave behind for the rest of the week. What did you expect me to do? Getting into flower arrangement? I wanted something more for myself, excitement is not an exactly fitting term but the best I can come up with." He took a close look at her face and she knew he was checkng for signs of her lying. She had seen some of his colleagues do it when they tried to determine whether she had been faking it. 

"What would you say attracted you in the first place?"

"You are serious about this whole talk thing, aren't you?"

"Well of course, I told you so." He looked confused and she sighed once more.

"I liked your calm ways. You always kept to yourself and never boasted though you would have had every reason. You cared for others, took responsibility. You are reliable and caring, I guess."

"So....if I was to avoid anyone ever getting this attached to me again, I should behave more arrogant and....conceal my care for them?"

"If that was your aim. Though I don't see why you would. I thought this actually was about....never mind." Mycroft had given her a look that unmistakably told her this was not a topic to be addressed. She got up and found herself a nightgown, when she returned he was staring out of the window. She watched him for a while, his chest heaving under the shirt. He looked like a very confused child, the child she knew he never had had the chance to be. It showed itself in those few moments he allowed himself to shed the ceremony. One of those moments was her most lively memory of her time with him. He had made it a habit to study at night when the worry for his brother made sleep impossible. Some of those nights she stayed for company and watched, lounging on his bed. More often than not she fell asleep. He had believed her to be asleep that one time when he came up to the bed and knelt on the floor, his face very close to hers. Running a single finger along the outline of a curl he had whispered to her about homesickness at boarding school, the expectations his father had in him slowly eating him up inside. About sparing his brother having to go through the same pains and failure. About his constant fear to be a failure. Maybe it would have been wise to talk to him back then but she had felt completely steamrolled by the amount of emotions that was pouring out of him and had found salvation in deserting him.

She sat on the armrest of his chair and watched the pearls of sweat that had pooled on his forehead.

"What's her name?" she whispered in a voice that she hoped sounded pacifying.

He looked up at her and she saw his eyes were swimming. "Does it matter?" he asked before he dropped his head in her lap and began to cry with tiny, almost inaudible sobs.

 


	43. Dancing: Exotic and Otherwise

It wasn't that he wasn't tired. Not at first. The habit bore from the necessity to sleep with one eye open. It developed from there. Suddenly he found, even on those occasions that there was no rational reason for extened attention that he was unable to wind down enough for sleep. One night, at two in the morning he once more gave in and abandoned any attempts of rest, pacing the streets of Sao Paulo in the thickening heat of the progressing summer. The nature of his involvement brought with it isolation. In his mind his brother raised an eyebrow whenever he felt it. A younger version, one that still wore his shirts with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the ginger hair still slightly longer. The Mycroft that brought back books from Heffer's by the dozen and blushed when mentioning Irene. And of course he was right, he had always been alone and maybe even lonely. But being in a place where he didn't know every corner by heart, the streets weren't friendly, familiar faces, he felt it. That was when the dancing had started. He would never admit it, it seemed such an irrational concept, but when his mind melted into the tunes while his body moved with the rhythm, he found peace and relief as his mind powered down. The proximity of others, the heat of bodies globed together in one fluid mass, he found it bearable in the darkness and noise of the clubs. He hardly noticed the passing of hours as he coalesced with the crowd, became one moving particle of the flock, a molecule of a manyfaced creature. He was never alone long. Others were drawn towards him, made their offer and he found himself accepting more and more often. He soon noticed that many seemd just as lost as him. And he took the opportunity to leave himself behind. Those others used him more like a canvas, projecting what they were looking for on his flawless surface. And he played along, analysed and accepted whatever they wanted him to be. Their fantasy was his armour he wouldn't need to shed even in the most bare of moments. It took away the danger of pain that had been at his side and on his mind every second he had been with Victor. If they didn't like what they saw it wasn't his fault, it was theirs. He was nothing and everything, a mannquin they used and that waas gone before their glittering illusion exploded in the sharp light of the morning. All that survived was a surreal memory in which he imagined himself as barely human. Some needed him to listen when they lay there, spread out and spent, hardly a breeze making its way into the city. Some wnated him to talk and so he chattered away, tiptoeing his way along the combatted border between fact and fiction. He was a businessman, a lawyer, a poet,a model, a spoilt and depressive heir. He relished in the looks he got when he turned and moved, teased his way through the night by simply biting his lips or running a hand through his hair as he had seen it Greg do so many times, thus never short on supplies. Coming down was another matter. Despite the horrid shaking and headaches, he always managed at least something like a slumber after those nights, waking with his finger on speed dial and Victor's name on the display.

 

 

Her parents were nice, eager to make him feel comfortable and so Greg suffered patiently through the uneasiness that wasn't vanishing easily.

"So, a copper?" Her father looked at him as the adverts of the halftime came on.

"Yep." he answered, reaching for the bowl of crisps.

"She's talking a lot about you. To mother I mostly." He waved towards the kitchen where the clattering of plates and Clara's high pitched laugh filled the room.

"Not sure that is a good thing?" he watched his attempt fof a joke die on the carpet.

"A man needs to know what he wants or others will walk all over you. She does that sometimes."

He almost choked on the crumbs of crisps as he spat out his request for clarification. Her father looked at him with pity, for his embarrasing show he made of himself right now or his general situation, he didn't know.

"Look, I'm just saying, make sure you know what you want or she will decide for you."

Heat gathered around Greg's collar as tatters of the chase after Mycroft flooded his brain. He found his thoughts being with the brothers more often than with anyone else. He cleared his throat and nodded into his lemonade. "Thanks for the warning, I'll keep it in mind."

He sat through the meal praying for a call to deanding his presence at work. It wouldn't come. And so he felt like the cheapest thing on earth when he faked one, rushing from the semi detached hell with hurried excuses. He knew what he wanted, he just wasn't sure he was willing to pay the price for it.

 

And then came the night he found him, or at least the remains. He hated himself for getting too much of the stuff last night, he felt weak like in the middle of a heavy flu. He crouched down and leaned his head against the raw bricks of the hut he had been hidden and burnt in. There were still shouts and angry sounds from somewhere in the favela as the police was cleaning up behind him, but no more gunshots. He was grateful for it. Without the adrenalin of being in the middle of a chase they were too loud, it felt like they exploded his brain.

"He's dead. A shot right to the head. Frank's dead."

"People usually are when being shot in the head." He groaned, turning around and struggling to lift himself into standing again. "And I'm sure most of those tears are about keeping up the appearance of a grieving widow who knew nothing about her husband's bussiness as long as police is still strolling around the premises, wouldn't you agree Mrs. Hudson?"

The woman gave a little insulted huff but her face quickly smoothed down again. "You will tell them I have nothing to do with his murder, won't you?" She took hold of his arm and helped him straighten up with one, uneasy look at the burnt corpse in the corner.

"I think your husband had enough other people hating him for you to be on the end of a very long list of suspects. Besides, your only motive would be that he was planning to exchange you for a younger model of an exotic dancer, a problem more elegantly solved with poisoning the man of which you would have had many opportunities being the one cooking for the entire cartell. You will face some charges for dealing and cohabitating with the local mafia but a generous amount to the right people you might even be able to claim the rest of your inheritance from him." Sherlock stepped away as two police men came in to pack up the remains. The word inheritance reminded him and he forced his numbed brain to formulate a text to his brother.


	44. Family resemblance

The chriping of an incoming text interrupted the very uncomfortable silence between Mycroft and his father as they sat side to side on the couch of his parents' house, listening to their mother's happy chatter.

"I wished you would work less hard, Mycroft. It can't be good. And now that you even carry your phone around with you..." she leaned over and refilled his cup. Mycroft wondered how much she knew about the exact nature of the dispute between him and his father and admired her for her relentless energy in ignoring and covering up the broad rift that was going through the room whenever they were in it together.

 

Congratulations. You've just been made a father. He's dead beyond any doubt. SH

 

Mycroft swallowed hard but recomposed his face as he felt his father's eyes approaching his face. He hardly noticed when Lissi tugging at the leg of his trousers wanting to show him something. He reached down absentmindedly, pulling her into his lap. Her hair smelt of green apple, a a must have in the playground at the moment apparently. 

"George, you think we can go?"

"Lissi, his name isn't George. His name is Mycroft." It was as if he could feel the confusion fill her from top to bottom. He closed his eyes and buried his nose in the apple scent. How could he have not been prepared for a comeback from his father? He curled his arm closer around the child.

"Bernhard, what was that for? She is a child for goodness sake."

"That's no reason to lie to her, is it? At least she should know who the man is that took her in so generously. Though I'd prefer you would get on with founding a proper family of your own some time soon, you're not getting younger." he added and Mycroft wondered how much of that gin had gone into his father's tea.

"That true?" Lissi looked up at him, leaning deeper into his arm. Mycroft nodded, averting his eyes. No one spoke for a while and Mycroft waited for her to seperate her body from his, reject the proximity, hurt and disappointed.

"I like your name." she stated after what felt like an eternity before climbing down in search for another piece of cake. Mycroft exchanged looks with his mother before getting out of his chair, feeling a hundred years old. 

"I shall go and find Leo, we should be leaving soon to avoid the main traffic. Lissi, go find your shoes."

He slowly climbed the stairs towards what used to be his room. Leo had disappeared towards that direction shortly after their arrival in search of a peaceful spot for reading. He found him crouched in the chair in front of Sherlock's desk, browsing a pile of books he had nicked from the library downstairs. Mycroft placed himself at the edge of the bed, inspecting his hands.

"Leo, there is something I need to tell you." The boy faced him, keeping a finger in between the pages of the book. In any other situation Mycroft would have smiled at the alikeness with the only other little boy he had ever cared for.

"Dad's not coning back, is he?" it sounded more composed than it ought to. Mycroft nodded, picking up one of the books from the pile. Botanics.

"Leo, there's something else you ought to know. My work can be dangerous sometimes. That is why I lied to you when we met at the beach back then. About my name. I thought it safer. For me and you." The old chair squeeked as Leo turned to face him.

"What do you work?"

"I work for the government. My name is Mycroft." The child kept studying his face.

"Are you a spy of sorts?" Mycroft couldn't help but flinch.

"Listen, I don't want you to think I didn't trust you, I lied in order to keep you safe. This is nothing anyone your age should be involved in."

"How did he die?" Leo got up, sitting on the bed next to him.

"I don't know yet exactly. I'll let you know as soon as I have the details." He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, completely unable to offer anything more.

"I haven't told Lissi yet. Can we keep this between us till we get home? Just think she'll feel more comfortable with nanny being there." Leo nodded.

"Can I borrow those?" he asked, pointing at the pile of books.

"Of course." Mycroft tugged them under his arm, nodding at the door and Leo obediently got up and made his way downstairs. As he searched for the switch for the light, Mycroft spotted the dusted box containing Sherlock's first microscope. He too, had had a phase of botanical interest and had enjoyed looking at pieces of plants with it. He blew the dust of it and made the box the bottom of the pile under his arm. When he reached the hallway, his mother was already busy tugging Lissi into her coat. He left without a word of greeting to his father, closing the door behind them determinedly. 

 

Mycroft kept pacing the door to her room even when the crying had ebbed a long time ago and Lissi's eyes had closed, overwhelmed by exhaustion. He watched her through the leaned door as he waited for his brother to pick up his call, there was no answer. He cursed under his breath, finally accepting his lot that he would have to wait to the morning to find out anything. Leo's door gave a tiny sound that echoed unfamiliarly loud in the empty hallway and his overheated brain. They watched Lissi together in silence for a while, Mycroft resting his hand on the tiny head next to him.

He suddenly remembered an episode from long ago, maybe he had been about Leo's age. The house had felt just as empty when he returned from the garden, dragging Sherlock along behind him. His brother had only just begun to walk and like with everything, took his new freedom to extremes. The child would scream until his face turned red and blue, banging his tiny fists against the glass doors leading into the garden until someone would let him out so he could climb up and down the few steps that led from the patio onto the lawn.He went up and down for what seemed like hours never growing tired of it. It must have been a Saturday, he faintly recalled the housekeeper not being in on Saturday afternoons. It was a butterfly, bigger than he had ever seen or maybe it was just in his memory, but Sherlock of course saw it as well and began getting excited. He follwed the colourful thing around, reaching for it and before Mycroft realized what was about to happen, he fell down the three steps, hitting his chin on a flowerpot. The scream coming from the tiny mouth was epic. And so he pulled him back into the house, looking for his mother. She wasn't in the living room, neither in the kitchen. Finally he left the sobbing bundle at the foot of the staircase, calling for her. Her bedroom door was locked. He banged against the door but got no answer. She would later tell him she had fallen asleep and being a child he believed it, or maybe already had known better than to enquire further. He had forgotten all about the incident until now and it was like he relived the killing panic once more. Sherlock was too young to remember anything and thanks to a very skilled GP he didn't even have a scar on his chin to tell the tale.

"Come on." he whispered, taking Leo's hand, always surprised at how small and soft it was in his own. He grabbed the duvet from the boy's bed and wrapped him into it, then carried him into his sister's room. He sat down in the armchair by the window with Leopold resting on his lap, throwing some teddy bears onto the floor. No one would be feeling alone tonight he decided, not even he himself. And so he sat in the dimmed light of the reading light on her bedside table citing Homer from memory to the child in his lap that was slowly drifting off into much needed sleep. It felt like he was repaying his debt with every word and every pang of pain that twitched in his tired muscles.

 

He hadn't told Clara about his day off and so he woke alone to the dim light of the morning in his bedroom. A rare occasion lately. In the blur of fading sleep he found himself thinking of Mycroft. If they hadn't been so heavy, he would have rolled his eyes at himself for it. Rain was drumming against the windows softly and he turned once more into the pillow with the faint hope of slipping into sleep once more. When he woke again it was from the buzzing of his mobile slowly wandering over the surface of the bedside table but he managed to catch it before it would fall over the edge. It was a number unknown which pushed him into high alert thinking about hospitals, car accidents, his mother, Sherlock. So he was prepared for the worst when a faintly familiar female voice greeted him.

"This is Miss Lewis, Mr Holmes' housekeeper. Mr Lestrade?"

"Yes, that's me." he was fighting to sit up but somehow he was tangled in his sheets.

"This is a little bit of a delicate situation for me, Mr Holmes doesn't know about this, but I was hoping you would maybe be able to come by some time today?" When he didn't answer immediatly she continued, clearly nerves breaking her voice and confidence. "Mr Holmes isn't well and I think he would appreciate someone to talk to. His brother is due to return but hasn't been in touch as far as I can gather and he's been up for several days in a row now." Greg groaned, more for the familarity of the scenario than anything else. 

"I'm sorry, for bothering you, you are probably right I should have called Mrs Holmes." Ms Lewis hurried to answer and Greg was wide awake instantly.

"No, no, no! Under no circumstances. There's no need to worry her. I'm basically on my way." Greg knew she would react hysterically if she heard Sherlock was potentially in trouble again and would be more of a burden to Mycroft than any help. He cut Ms Lewis' long string of gratefulness short with a promise to get going right now. Standing in the middle of his bedroom, he scratched his head, looking for something decent to wear and finding that was futile, he settled for clean and mostly ironed. 

On his way to the tube he pacified Clara with a quick text that should free him from any enquiries until the evening. He walked faster to keep himself from feeling like the rotten liar he was. The closer he got to Mycroft's station the more people in suits crowded in. By the time he arrived at his station, he was the only one without a tie. He awkwardly made his way through the crowd an was relieved to breathe fresh air as he reached ground level again.

 

"You have to move your counter Mycroft." Lissi leaned over the table and grabbed it, counting for him. 

"I'm sorry." he grabbed the dice and rolled it, but Lissi protested again. "You do it all wrong." she complained and Mycroft sighed, giving the silent phone another look.

"Myc, the door!" Leo startled him by touching his arm. Since hearing of the death of his father, he hardly spoke any more. Mycroft failed to bridge the silence for him and hated himself for it. It took him a while to get out of his chair and reach the front door. The outline shining through the glass of the door already told him who it was but his mind refused to come up with a likely explanation for Greg's presence. An so his greeting lacked any grace.

"Greg."

"Yes, it's me. Hello."

Mycroft stepped aside, stopping Lissi from slipping outside past them, he didn't like them to be outside, it felt like he was just waiting for the next disaster to happen. As long as they stayed inside, it seemed as if he regained some kind of control.

"He hasn't been in touch?" Mycroft shook his head, leaning aginast the wall in the hallway. He searched for his phone and showed Greg Sherlock's last text.

"Who's dead?" Greg handed back the phone and Mycroft tried to stay awake long enough for an answer. "Their father." he managed to produce, his brain sloshing through quicksand.

"Shit. Fucking hell!"

"Three swear words in one half sentence curse, you're outdoing yourself."

"So are you, you look shit, mate." Greg grabbed his shoulder and stirred him towards the couch in his living room.

"Why exactly are you here?" Greg ignored the question and pressed him into the seat. 

"Listen, this doesn't work. He won't suddenly call just because you pick up his bad habits and stop sleeping and eating."

"I have to be at work tomorrow."

"Yeah, right." Greg huffed, grabbing Mycroft's mobile once more. "You'll start a war by accident if you turn up. You look like death in person. What's your supervisor's name?" He scrolled through the contacts, swallowing once or twice at the amount of pseudonyms. Mycroft pouted, biting his lips.

"Tell me the name or I shall call your mother and ask her." It was a dirty trick he knew, but this asked for desperate measures.

"Q."

"What?"

Mycroft rolled his eyes, snatching the device from his hands. "I'm not a child, Greg! And certainly not Sherlock." He scrolled through the contacts and hit the button. As the call was answered, he walked towards the kitchen, closing the door behind himself.

"A certain family resemblance is to be observed today." Greg shouted after him before he became aware of two pairs of eyes watching him intently from the other side of the room.

"Hi!" he waved gingerly at them.

"Are you a friend of Mycroft?" The girl asked, peeling herself out of her brother's arm who kept an iron grip around her shoulders.

"Sort of, yes."

"Are you also a spy?"

"Elisabeth!" the boy groaned, covering his face with his hands.

"No. I'm a police officer." She gave him another look but seemed satisfied and hopped away towards the TV.

 

He found Miss Lewis in the utility room and made her call in the nanny. Mycroft had disappeared into the study, his voice floating through the door in a constant low mutter.

"Is there anything he is likely to eat?" he asked her, opening the lusciously filled fridge. Lewis sighed.

"I'm out of my wits. He sits down with them but just pushes the stuff around the plate. He tells me he ate at work but I don't think he does." She wrung her hands nervously. "I called at the club, he hasn't been in since...well."

"Since what?"

She sighed. "I'm not supposed to snoop like this. It could cost my job."

"Your job is to look after him and as far as I can see you try to do a good job at it just now."

"He went to see his parents on Sunday. There seems to have been some kind of argument between him and his father. That's what I was able to gather from the girl anyway. I only realized how bad of he actually is today, he works from home on Thursday's."

"Right. This is what I think. We'll get the children out of the house and try to get some food down his throat. Experience with his brother tells me, that sleep follows naturally from that."

She nodded and gave him a relieved smile, grabbing bits and pieces from the fridge.

 


	45. Roads not Taken

The study looked like something from a historical novel. The large desk in the middle was covered in binders and paper, only the phone and a laptop acknowledged the invention of electricity. Greg breathed in deeply, the air was full of dust but also remains of Mycroft's after shave and a faint smell of burned wood from the fireplace.

Mycroft was still on the phone but eyed the tray Greg was balancing towards him with suspicion. Greg laid out the cuttlery, moving paper to make room for the plate. He tried not to look at anything too closely, it felt like a sacrilege to come in here. The man in the large leather seat surely was another one, the elegant, imposing version he remembered from their meeting at the bar.

"Yes, just send the stuff over. I'll get it back to you before the weekend. And sorry once more for the inconvenience." After a short farewell, he hung up, his eyes going back and forth between the plate and Greg's face.

"You're serious about this, aren't you?" Mycroft sighed, picking up his fork.

Greg grinned, moving a chair closer to the desk.

"Oh good Lord, you're even going to watch so I don't discard it in the fireplace?"

"Your brother has taught me manifold things. I don't trust a Holmes."

Mycroft began pushing a tomato around his plate staring into the salad as if he was negotiating with it to dissolve in air.

"That might be a wise decision." he whispered eventually, chewing on the offending vegetable with disgust.

He watched him eat in silence, watched as the tired air around him grew into something bigger that seemed to swallow him completely.

"I sent them to the playground. Myabe you should use the opportunity and have a nap."

Mycroft buried his face in his hands as if it suddenly was too heavy to be held up by his neck alone. 

"Headache..." he voiced and Greg believed to see colour leaving his body as he said it.

"Do you have anything in the house I could give you?" Greg got up, suddenly expecting Mycroft to collapse over his desk.

"Upstairs bathroom."

Greg made for the staircase only to find himself in a huge hallway with several doors. He had to open almost all of them before standing in something that could have been a ballroom for all he knew refurbished into a bathroom. The whole room seemed to be organised in some mysterious system, not even the toothbrush being out of angle and the laundry being folded. The brothers' certainly didn't do normal and there seemed two extremes one could go to when one's overactive brain forced you into organising your environment.

The small cabinet full of pills and bottles was no exception to the rest of the house, overorganised in a way that made him hesitant to touch anything.

"Sherlock, I can see where you are coming from." Greg frowned, working his way through too many tranquillizers and little cardboard boxes that didn't have a label in English. He finally found a box that had something about migraine on it and grabbed it. Mycroft already sat on the edge of his bed when Greg was about to rush back downstairs. 

"In here." he called for him without looking up from where his hands were undoing his pale blue shirt. Greg made sure he handed him the pills without staring all too obvious at him by looking for a glass pour some water in. 

"Don't bother." Mycroft sighed, freeing three of the pills from the blister, swallowing them all in one. They looked at each other, Greg feeling more and more out of place, unsure what to say or where to go. He knew he should be leaving but Mycroft's stare nailed him to the spot like a deer in a car's limelight. Just as he wondered if the older Holmes made him uncomfortable on purpose to make him leave, he noticed the rush of a pale blush on the man's neck. 

"You think you'll still be here by the time I wake up?" it sounded businesslike, as if he expected Greg to whip out his diary to check his availability.

"If you would like me to?" Greg shrugged, sweat suddenly trickling down his neck.

"Might be good for someone to be awake when they come back." 

"Of course." Greg muttered a little too quickly as Mycroft crawled into the bed with too much grace to be playing fair.

"Good night, Myc." he uttered, closing the door behind himself. Mycroft huffed. "Good night, Greg."

 

Lewis was rummaging around the kitchen when Greg strolled in search of a place where he could feel not completely out of place. She gave him a grateful smile, resting a tray of freshly baked buns on the counter. 

"I don't know what I would have done without you." she beamed a smile at him that made him blush, she probably was in her mid twenties.

"That's quite alright. He must be a difficult boss sometimes." It was her time to blush and she wiped her hands on her apron before handing him one of the buns. It smelled of warm butter and icing sugar.

"He asked me to wait for the children." she nodded, undoing the knot and wiping away some of the flour on the table with it. 

"Don't let him fool you, he is more than gratefull you came. I'm leaving now, I'm sure he wouldn't mind you to find yourself something to do."

 

When Mycroft woke, twilight was creeping over the roofs of the houses around. He listened to the birds outside for a while, relishing in the absence of pain in his head. He stretched and slowly made for the door, slightly confused by the sounds coming from downstairs until he began to remember. They sat on his couch, giggling at some show on TV. Lissi seemed to have a hard time breathing from laughing, she was snorting and rolling on the cushions.

"Pizza?" Greg turned his head towards him, leaning it over the backrest of the sofa so that he was smiling at him upside down.

"No,thanks, might be a bit much on my stomach." The greasy cardboard box on the coffee table reminded him of his treadmill and the slurping sounds from Leo who was trying to get to the last drops of coke in his glass with a straw actually made him sweat.

"It's Mr Bean, I thought I might give it a try, lifting the mood slightly, I mean."

"And it seems you have been quite successful."

Another fit of laughter gurgling out of Lissi's throat prevented an answer from Greg and Mycroft used his chance to escape towards his study. Inside he pressed his eyes closed, trying to control his breathing. He wanted nothing more than join them, he just wasn't sure how. 

"You alright?" Mycroft jumped as Greg's head appeared in the door.

"Of course. Just checking my phone. I'll be with you in a minute." He fiddled for the phone finding it in the pocket of his dressing gown.

"Do you know anything about where he is and what he does?" Greg slipped inside, closing the door behind himself. Any air seemed to have left the room and Mycroft became aware of the irony that whenever he felt the urge to produce physical proximity with someone he was having a conversation about Sherlock's lifestyle choices at the same time.

"As far as I'm informed he is whoring his way through Sao Paulo, consuming whatever gets into his reach. I didn't intervene so far as he seemed in control and kept up the contact, I just worry I missed the moment for intervention again." He dropped the phone in his pocket again, fighting for his lungs to fill with air. "I lost him, Greg, I lost him again. And with all this here, I can't even go and find him." His voice began to waver and he straightened his back in a despereate attempt to gain control of his body.

"I know it sounds cheesy but there isn't much you can do if he doesn't want to be helped. He'll turn up before it's too late, he always does."

 

Greg listened to Mycroft reading Wind in the Willows to Lissi with all the voices as she had demanded while he was straigthening up the remains of their feast. He avoided looking at his phone, he knew he had at least one text from Clara waiting for him. As he folded the cardboard box into the trash, his conscious made him step outside to call her. The rain had left the air fragrant and soft, he stood in a corner of the porch he hoped wasn't visible from inside. It felt like letting Mycroft down though he knew the man certainly didn't mind. He exchanged a few words with her about her day, promised to see her the day after tomorrow the latest. He just had a lot on his plate right now, and that wasn't even a lie. As she talked about another fight she had had with a colleague at lunch hour, he watched the lights on the upper floor go on, first the opaque window of the bathroom, then the huge double French window in what he believed to be Leo's room. All this was waiting for him, in a less mundane version he knew, if he continued down the road he was on. Standing on this porch, watching Mycroft's silhouette behind the curtains didn't make it feel as threatening as it appeared to him when he woke from nightmares in his flat. The odd feeling of relief gave him the strength to say his goodbyes to her with relative cheerfulness. He had wanted to be back inside before Mycroft would notice him having stepped outside but even with them having a migrane, outwitting a Holmes was beyond him. 

"You need to leave? Let me get you a car." Mycroft pulled the gorgeous jade green dressing gown closer around himself, turning to go inside again. Greg instantly felt this was a turning point that potentially would change his life, the course of fate. Time stopped as all the blood in his veins froze. It was the moment of decision.

"No. Unless you would like me to."

It was obvious Mycroft felt it too, the pale eyes resting on his with unbearable intensity. Even in a state this shaken, he was an awe-strucking appearance and in his own odd way fascinating, even handsome.

"Are you sure? I would understand, you know. I know this is not exactly your cup of tea." Mycroft's voice was hardly more than a low whisper. Greg forced his eyes to keep up the contact.

"Yes, I am sure."

Mycroft swallowed, his eyes roaming over the lush, glossy green of the gardens around. "I would never forgive myself if I kept you from anything you felt you wanted to do because you feel under some kind of obligation. Tonight I mean..."

"I know." There was no faltering now. He took a step towards the entrance in which Mycroft stood surrounded by a corona of light, shining along his outline.

"Can I come in? It's growing cold out here."

"I'm not sure I have any beer, but would you like some tea?" Mycroft muttered, holding the door open for him with stagnant breath and shaking hands.

 


	46. The Waste Land

"You have a rather nice voice for reading." Greg stated as he picked up the discarded book from the couch, falling into it. Mycroft huffed at him and rolled his eyes. Ohter than his infamous brother, compliments didn't go down with him well.  
"What do you read when you aren't impersonating a toad?"  
Mycroft straightened himself up, toying with a glass he had picked from the coffeetable to clean it away towards the kitchen.  
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood  
and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth; I shall be telling this with a sigh   
somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by,   
and that has made all the difference." It wasn't more than a whisper and Greg saw selfawareness wash over the face that he was sure delivered spreeches without a script every day.  
"Not the most refined of poems but I like it." Mycroft cleared his throat, escaping once more towards the kitchen.  
"Never been good with literature but I could recite the list of Championship winners for you, back to the beginning. Not that I am fooled into believing I could impress you with that." Greg joked, hoping he could hear him in the kitchen.  
"I'm sure that is a skill more unique than mine to recite crap poetry." Mycroft sighed, getting into the seat on the very other end of the couch.  
"You'd be surprised. Football is quite a thing out there." he grinned leaning his head in Mycroft's direction.  
"Is that so?" Mycroft seemed slightly amused, the hint of a smile playing along the corners of his mouth that was now in relative proximity to Greg's as he propped his arm on the back of the couch, leaning his forehead on his hand.  
"Tell me something nobody else knows about you." Greg whispered in a strangled voice as their gazes locked.  
"Do you remember back when I came to your office to meet Sherlock once a week?"  
"Of course."  
Mycroft took a deep breath, combing his hair with his fingers. "I never thought those days he didn't show up a waste, because it meant I would have you to myself for a while, that I could...talk."  
Greg placed a hand at his neck, leaned him down and kissed him.

"Sir, you might want to consider getting up. Your way to work is slightly longer from here." Lewis pulled back the heavy blackout curtains and Greg found himself waking up to an otherwise empty bed that wasn't his. He rubbed his eyes, waiting for the surroundings to change into something more familiar until memory came back, the kiss, the odd silence that followed, the hour he watched Mycroft as he dozed on the other side of the bed, fully clothed, struck down by another wave of migrane. Where had he gone?

Lewis came back into the room, leaving a pile of clothes on the armchair near the fireplace. 

"Mr Holmes left those for you." he blinked at her sheepishly.

"He was called into work at four this morning." she added in explanation, probably annoyed by his slow thinking.

"Ah." was all he managed in a reply and Lewis piled a towel to the stack on the armchair.

"What would you like me to prepare for your breakfast?"

"Uhm, dunno, I usually have a coffee and a cigarette." It was her turn to blink in confusion.

"Toast then." she muttered, leaving the room with determined speed.

Greg got up inspecting the outfit left behind for him. It wasn't what he had worn last night, it were his clothes nevertheless. He groaned with embarrassment thinking about one of the house staff having to go through the clutter in his flat to find clean clothes. He tried not to imagine how they had gotten in, that was a piece of information with the potential of destroying any illusion he had about his own safety in that flat. 

Though he was tempted to take advantage of it, he ignored the huge bathtub in the middle of the ballroom bath, trying to turn on the shower in the corner instead. The warm water came from all sides, he felt a little like a vehicle at the car wash, for a short moment he waited for cleaner to be sprayed at him, someone coming in to scrub him down. With a disbelieving grin to himself he reached for the shower gel.

It wasn't until he sat in the kitchen on his own, cleaning staff and Lewis performing their professional dance in the house around him, that the full impact of what had happened hit him. He had kissed Mycroft Holmes.

"And that made all the difference." he muttered as his heart tried to jump out of his throat at the realisation.

 

"It's me."

"I know. Where are you?"

"Brazil."

"Well, would you mind to elaborate please?" Mycroft hissed, his patience being tested. He regretted it immediately, the kind of breath Sherlock took on the other side of the line told him the window of getting through to him was closing rapidly.

"Is this what I get for cleaning up your mess?"

"Risking to repeat myself, where are you?"

"Still in Sao Paulo. I need you to get a passport an a lawyer for someone who is with me. I won't return unless you can guarantee me you will help her."

"Her?"

"Mrs. Hudson. She is the widow of the druglord I worked for last time I was here. I gathered all the evidence to prove she is not involved in his murder but she will need a lawyer."

"You want me to help the member of a drug cartell by paying for her lawyer? Why?"

"She used to make me dinner while I was undercover."

"She used to make you dinner." Mycroft repeated, in a toneless voice before he finally understood.

"Name, address and full story, and Sherlock I mean the full story, to be left with my secretary. Now, when! are you planning to return?"

"She's new."

"Yes."

"What did you do to the other one?"

"She pointed out to me that calling her between midnight and six in the morning at home was not in her contract. I seem to have done so repeatedly."

"There are a few things I need to figure out before coming back to London."

"Come back and I'll get you a room at the clinic." Mycroft sounded almost pleading and hated it.

"It's under control. I'll manage."

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes, you can deceive yourself but not me. You have never been in control of anything in your life and certainly not this particular strand of it." There was no answer but hostile silence.

"I shall hand you to Anthea now, she'll arrange for the lawyer for your...friend."

 

Days ticked by and there was no contact. It was as if nothing had ever happened. When he had dinner with Clara, it lay on his thigh under the table, it leaned against the waterglass during his meetings. It remained silent. People noticed, Clara did but didn't comment. Only when she caught him checking for texts in the middle of the night, she reached over and turned it off. 

"Sherlock is working on a case for me, he hasn't been in touch."

"Is this even legal?" she snapped, turning towards the other side of the bed. 

 

"A week." Greg stated as he got into the back of the black car. Mycroft looked at him confused.

"A week without a word from you and then you turn up at my crime scene?" He began to become annoyed, the looks Donnovan gave the car were of the uncomfortably nosy sort.

Mycroft turned the handle of his umbrella between his hands, not looking at him.

"I thought you had changed your mind." Greg waited for a reply but there was none. "Are you going to participate in this conversation in any way?"

"There were complications, I left for France the very night."

"And they don't have phones in France?" Greg yelled, regretting it immediatly as Mycroft blinked and heads outside turned towards them.

"I didn't expect you to mind or notice my absence."

"Are you bloody insane?" he yelled again, though he hadn't planned to.

Mycroft looked genuinly confused and Greg took a very deep breath that wasn't as calming as he had hoped it to be.

"I am sorry you worried, but you wouldn't answer my text on Friday so I thought you might not be interested in seeing me again in that way and so I backed off. I'm actually here because that corpse in there is to be dealt with in my departmen rather than yours."

Greg was too gobsmacked to stop him when he opened the door and made towards the crime scene tape. He watched Mycroft show Donnovan some official looking paper, a few heated words were given back and forth before the Holmes disappeared into the depth of the wasteland towards the corpse.

 

"There's absolutely no point in fighting for the case with them, you're wasting your energy, let's just get packed up, I don't feel like getting in trouble." Donovan said as she tried to stop him from following Mycroft into the maze of car wrecks. They had installed two large spotlights to see anything as night broke over them. Now the place they had found the man was bright as day, long shadows stretching out from there into the metal desert around.

 

"There was no fucking text." he hissed at Donovan, freeing his arm from her grip.

"What are you talking about?" the officer threw her hands up in desperation but gave up following him.

Mycroft stared at the corpse in a way that was looking too familiar to be comfortable. When he kneeled down to take a look at the bruised arm of the victim, his long fingers gloved in black leather lingered for a split second too long on the blood smeared hand. 

Greg crossed his arms and cleared his throat. "You knew him?"

For a while there was no answer, Mycroft cleaning the tip of his gloves with a tissue that bore his initials. He never took the eyes of the dead man.

"Yes." was all there was as an answer which left Greg in an uncomfortable place between his partly professional curiosity and his insecurity about how to deal with a grieving Holmes.

"He went to school with Sherlock." Mycroft finally added as his eyes scanned the surroundings. "Has any evidence been removed yet?"

"No, you came in before they got started." he couldn't completely hide his anger about that but Mycroft didn't seem to pick up on that notion or just chose to ignore it, Greg wouldn't want to decide which was worse. He jumped when suddenly a woman's voice spoke from behind him.

"Mr Lestrade, I think my colleague has made it quite clear this is no longer your case. Would you be so kind as to leave like the rest of your team?"

"Calm down Q, he's no harm." Mycroft answered without looking at the elderly woman. She didn't seem convinced and looked at Greg once more from top to bottom. Greg kept up the stare.

"I'll let you know as soon as we find anything." she muttered at Mycroft, one also gloved hand on his back. Finally the man seemed able to take his eyes of the corpse, looking at her with a fondness he had never seen him use with anyone else but the two children. Suddenly his eyes lightened up and he made for one of the car wrecks, leaning through a smashed in window with great care not to touch the sharp shards with his coat. Greg saw him pocketing something and so did Q who followed his every move with her eyes.

"He's into that kind of sentimentality and it's hardly of any value for you." Q looked at him for a second in response, then nodded and waved towards the entrance, more people appeared out of nowhere, beginning to secure evidence.

"Come on." Mycroft spoke quietly, taking his arm.

 

His team was gone when he reached the street, Mycroft following him in complete silence. They stood in the cane of light of a street lamp, Greg searching his pockets for a cigarette.

"I never got your text." Mycroft was holding out a lighter for him.

"I definitely sent it and when there was no answer I even checked with your provider, it was delivered to your device."

"Well, check it then, I never got it." he pressed the phone into Mycroft's palm. "I was waiting for a message, I had it with me all the bloody time because of it. I had no idea if it was okay to contact you, since...fuck, I dunno what you were up to."

"Was she with you? Did she have access to your phone?" he didn't take the mobile but handed it right back.

Greg studied his eyes for signs of jealousy but found none. Then the memory of his fight with Clara over him checking his phone at night returned."

"I told her I was waiting for a text from Sherlock about a case." Mycroft simply lifted an eyebrow looking at him with something like pity.

"Sorry, I'm new to cheating and deceiving." he snapped, extinguishing the cigarette with his foot. Mycroft sighed, looking down the street as if checking for witnesses of their conversation.

"Dinner?" he asked without looking at him and Greg punched his right arm softly as they started to walk off towards the main road.

"What did it say anyway, that mysterious text?" he asked, trying to keep up as Mycroft picked up his usual speed.


	47. White Tie and White Lie

"I'd preferred a plate of chips, actually." Greg whispered. The other man probably hadn't heard, he made a speedy path towards the desk in the lobby of the hotel he had lead them to. In his own territory, Mycroft was a different person. Determined, convincing, not to be tampered with, Greg thought with a shiver. He followed him slowly, giving his own muddy shoes a worried glance. Their table was by the window, he could see Westminster in the distance. The waiter pulled out the chair for him and Greg checked his face for any ridicule, they were the only ones around not in evening wear and Mycroft's suit certainly cost more than he earned in a month or two.

"Don't worry. As long as you are with me, no one will dare as much as give you a strange look. Besides, I used to bring Sherlock here." Mycroft was browsing the the wine menue, pointing at something. The waiter's features weren't reacting in any way.

"Is that supposed to make me more comfortable?" Greg huffed, counting the forks on his side of the table. "I like the view, though." he added, blushing at Mycroft's smile.

Antother couple came into the room, waiting to be seated. The woman was tall and dark haired, the man at least ten years older, his hand resting just above her bum. Mycroft nodded at her almost invisibly and she smiled before turning back at her companion.

"You know her?"

"Yes. Exgirlfriend."

"Ah. Didn't know you..."

"Not generally, just her. We met at uni."

Their waiter returned with a bottle wrapped in a white towel and poured the red, glistening content into Mycroft's glass to try it. Greg watched the procedure, never able to take his eyes of a small drop of red sitting on the man's lower lip who took his napkin and dabbed it away.

"I never..." He felt like there was hardly any air left in him to speak.

"I assumed as much." Mycroft took a big gulp from his glass, before turning towards the view outside. "That's why I didn't question the situation when you didn't reply. I must apologize for evaluating the scenario so wrongly. It wasn't my intention to upset you."

"I should have tried to contact you. It's just, I never know with you. And then you had left without another word. Why wouldn't you wake me up?"

"I'm not good at good byes and I had burdened you enough with my problems that day."

"I chose to be burdened. And it wasn't a burden, actually." Something shifted in the face opposite, his eyes returning from Big Ben to his face.

"I'm to attend a conference in Amsterdam from Thursday on. I'll be working till late afternoon but otherwise...Would you like to consider whether you would like to maybe come with me if at all possible?"

"Yes."

"I understand completely if you have other more important engagements and it might be a little late to ask for leave from work now, I'm aware of that, that's why I sent that text on Friday because I checked the rules, you have to give at least a week's notice at the Yard, that would have been yesterday. I understand if that's too much, I mean, it...we just...not met but..."

"I said yes, Mycroft." The face opposite blinked twice, face almost void. "Don't worry, I'll just trade shifts with someone. Sally owes me one." He reached a hand over, to pad Mycroft's who grabbed it as if he was drowning.

Slowly awareness of the quietly dining crowd around reentered his mind and pressing down on his fingers once more, he withdrew his hand.

 

"Very stressful day?" his mother tutted, taking his coat and umbrella.

"It was alright. The usual. How about here?"

"Everything fine. We went to the library. Again. They're such darlings."

"Do you think you could fix that?" he held a blue scarf out to her, spotted with oil and blood. She inspected it, eyes filling with worry.

"Car broke down, driver cut himself." he lied and she seemed satified, taking the piece of knitted cloth to the sink.

"Doesn't Sherli own one just like this?" he wouldn't give an answer but reached for the kettle.

"Did you hear from him lately?"

"He's on vacation, visiting friends in Sao Paulo. Said he would be back some time next months."

She sighed, a silent agreement to go with the obvious lie.

"Can you watch them next weekend? I got business in Amsterdam."

"You work too much, Myc. Just like your father."

"He and I, we got nothing in common, that's for sure." he hissed, finishing the last sips of his boiling hot tea.

"I just wished you would find yourself some friends outside of work. I worry you know."

"I'm absolutely happy and content with my life, mother." he smiled his broadest smile and she looked at him with obvious disbelief, but for once it wasn't a complete lie.

 

Sally was rather surprised when Greg rang her doorbell just as she was getting ready to settle in in front of the TV before calling it an early night, but when she saw a thin line of blood running from his lower lip she didn't hesitate to let him in. He mad straight for heer bathroom and she followed wordlessly.

"Who did you get into a figth with?"

Greg hissed as she applied disinfectant to his split lip. "I broke up with Clara."

"Ouch, she didn't take it well then, I reckon. What happened?"

"Ah, we had another discussion about me working too late and then she brought up the whole Sherlock business again and I told her I couldn't go on like this and she slapped me."

"I always told you the freak means trouble. What did he do?"

"Sent me a text."

"That's all? Okay, maybe she is a little bit of a drama queen as well." She handed him a bandaid and he tried to position it in a way that didn't make him look all too much like a fake gangster rapper.

"Do you think you could swap the weekend shift with me? I kinda need a break."

"Boy, I have a private life too, you know."

"Please?" Sally rolled her eyes and he gave her his best puppy look.

"Fine."

"You're the best. And could I maybe crash here tonight? Clara is probably still in my flat and I don't feel like going back and kick her out."

That gained him a laugh from her. "You got beaten up by a girl and now you're afraid to go back?" She nevertheless fished some extra bedding from a wardrobe putting it on the couch for him. He ordered pizza to make up for it which they downed with beer. Sally started to complain about the misconception TV dramas gave of their job and Greg agreed with her halfheartedly, only one eye on the sreen while firing off texts to Mycroft.

 

Coming with you. Where and when?

Wednesday night. I'll have you picked up. MH

Where are you right now?

Home. Working. You? MH

Sally's. Clara kind of kicked me out of my own flat.

U ok? MH

Looking forward to the trip.

You will love the place. MH

Hope that's not the only thing I get to love.

 

He looked at the last one for quite some time but then remembered all the people in his security that most probably also checked his messages and deleted it. 

 

"The latest report, Sir." Mycroft nodded at the man behind him and looked at the file without touching the lid. Expecting the worst, he finally convinced himself to face it. Several pictures, all just glued in with one tiny spot, glared up at him. Sherlock in a public toilet buying drugs. Sherlock meeting someone in the streets and yelling at her. The hair was getting long, he had grown a beard. 

 

Mr Holmes contacts "Firefly" at 22:11 in order to purchase cocaine with an estimated value of 450 Pounds. "Firefly" mentions H. accumulating debt and refuses to take part in the transaction.

H. leaves the premises at 22:19 towards rua principal.

H. withdraws money from several accounts at 22:25, 22:27, 22:28.

Phonecall to "Firefly" at 22:29 transcription see appendix 1.

H .returns to original meeting point, transaction is made at 22:49.

22:53 H. enters toilet facilities of the premises to consume illegal substance purchased, see picture 8.

23:00 H calls "Dave" who joins him at 23:12 .

 

Mycroft tried to convince himself it wasn't neccessary to look at picture 8 since he already knew what was on it. Some morbid tendency within him forced him to pick it up nevertheless.

"Would you like me to clear that away?" Anthea reached for the tray on his desk from behind but he stopped her hand, not taking his eyes of the photo. He could feel that the rest of the report would upset his stomach. The choice was between everybody noticing him throwing up or doing it on an empty stomach again which wasn't a pleasant experience.

"Uhm, yes, could you bring me another cup of that tea please, or make it two, will you?"

"Certainly, Sir. Q has called and asked me to remind you that you are to join her for the meeting with the ministry of defence today."

"As if I could forget that."

"Nervous, Sir?" 

He tried to recall all the trips to the bathroom in the last night but lost count at six. "Of course not." He could imagine what she talked about with her colleagues when they stood at the ashtray near the entrance. Catching your boss binge eating and throwing up twice a week certainly made an interesting story. The last time had been the night of his return from France when he had stopped at the office, hoping to find a peaceful place to calm down before facing his family again. Who could have known she would suddenly pop up out of nowhere. Though he had rather appreciated that she had laid out a fresh shirt and a toothbrush when he returned to his desk. 

How he was to survive a long weekened in Amsterdam without Greg finding out about this was still a matter to be addressed. 

"Anthea, could you check with the medical if she has an appointment free for me some time this week?"

She put down the tray with the fresh tea. "Certainly. What would you like me to tell her for how long you have had this upset stomach?"

Mycroft checked her face, a silent agreement of conduct was formed as their eyes met and suddenly he felt like he could kiss her.

"I don't really recall, it's been going on for a while." Ever since my brother decided to become a drug addicted nuisance some ten years ago wasn't an answer he wanted her to give to the doctor. "Maybe three months."

"Very well, Sir."

 

He stood by the door fifteen minutes before the agreed pick up time, duffelbag on his shoulder. An elderly neighbour gave him an inquisitive stare, he nodded at her, pattering from one foot to the other, checking for his passport and phone again and again. He had only been to the continent twice, once to France as part of a training programm and another time to Ibiza on a stag night, details of which he had chosen to erase firmly from memory. There were many things he had never done. Many he would maybe never master that were mere childplay for Mycroft. The car arrived and he got in with an uneasy feeling that the path to Amsterdam might be filled with too many forks on the table.

 

"You can get dressed, Tristam." The doctor rolled around on her chair, writing out what he hoped was a prescription. He buttoned up his shirt again, feeling like a schoolboy who tries to trick the schoolnurse into giving him sick leave from PE lessons.

"Three months you said?"

"More or less."

"It's not a gastric ulcer. Would you say you are eating on a regular basis?"

"Yes."

"Have you been under job-related pressure lately?"

"You are new here, aren't you?" he muttered but was ignored. He sighed. "Yes, I might be working a little much lately, about fourty hours last week." If she insisted, they would perform the complete little play if only it got him what he wanted.

"Do you counterbalance that in any way? Sports? Family?"

Mycroft forced himself into a neutral tone. "Oh yes, I spend plenty of time with my family at the moment. There's my brother and the children, my mother is staying with me from time to time. I intend to take it easy for a while after this conference."

She nodded. "Well, these should calm things down and bring you through the meetings without any sickness. But they are by no means a longitudal solution. Body signs like that ought not to be surpressed and ignored for too long. Come and see me again some time this months." 

He carefully folded the precious slip of paper into the pocket of his waistcoat and thanked her. As he put on his coat she addressed him once more.

"Tristam, you are certainly not underweight but I am to ask you this: some of your symptoms are indicative of a eating disorder. Would you consider yourself at risk of developing such a thing?"

He put on his best pensive expression and waited before answering her. "I don't know, never considered it. I don't think so."

She seemed satisfied, ticking a box in his file with a rather bored expression.

"Well, I hope negotiations will be going well for you."

"Thank you." and with that he sneaked out of the door.

 

"This way." A young woman addressed Greg without even stopping in her path. He had been sitting near the check-in counters, waiting for a flight to Amsterdam to appear on the screens.

"Where's Mycroft?"

"At check-in of course!" she snarled, not hiding her annoyance.

"Which one?" she only let out a sharp breath in response.

"I thought you were picked up by a driver."

"I was. He dropped me at the very other end, however, I had to walk all the way back to departures."

"You didn't have to, he dropped you just right." She signed at the security in front of a glass door and it was opened for them to pass.

"What airline is this?" as he spoke it, it dawned on him and he couldn't be cross with her for the dirty look she shot him in response.

Mycroft was half hidden behind his newspaper, sitting in a waiting area otherwise void.

"Found him. Got lost between the cattle." she gave him pat on the shoulder that should have annoyed him endlessly but Mycroft carefully folded the pages he had been reading and beamed a smile at him.

"As we are complete, I'd suggest we get going." Mycroft picked up a small leather suitcase and steered him towards another glass door and as they stepped out, he found himself on the tarnac.

"You could have told me." he whispered at Mycroft who was looking at the plane like a child at Christmas.

"I'm sorry, I only got the promotion this morning. After that, I just forgot."

"You got promoted?"

Mycroft nodded with uncharacteristic fervency, beaming at him as he aimed for the stairs.

 

"Who was that...person?" Mycroft looked at him with questioning eyes for a moment. He had opened his computer as soon as the wheels of the plane had left the ground and was typing furiously.

"Oh...you mean Anthea? She's my secretary. For now. Let's see how long she can stand me."

"You got a lot to do before we arrive?"

Mycroft picked up on the line and slammed down the top of the computer with too much force.

"Not really. We could talk."

George huffed and covered his forehead with one of his hands. Mycroft felt like stabbing himself with his biro just to escape from this. His heart was jumping in his throat like it had never done before. How could he have forgotten about telling Greg they weren't on a scheduled flight, where did he get the idea he would be able to handle the pressure of an entire weekend with him on top of that presentation? 

"You just seem so nervous. Is it about the conference?"

"Might be. I just didn't sleep much last night." Or the night before that.

"Did you make any plans for what you would like to see while we're there?" he tried to steer the conversation away from work, away from stolen defence plans and his brother's murdered exlover.

"Not really. I'll just pick up a map when we arrive, see what the usual to do list is. The typical tourist agenda. I'm sure you start your holidays more organised or what is it you usually do when on holiday?"

Mycroft swallowed twice. What was he to say? The one time I tried holiday I ended up with two children and their murdered mother in a beach house seemed hardly the kind of answer to keep Greg interested. He hadn't anticipated the embarrassing reveals to begin so early. 

"It's been a while that I travelled for recreational purposes."

Greg sighed and studied his face. "That's Holmes talk for I don't do holidays, right? Not even as a child?"

Mycroft stared out of the window for a while, thinking back to his holidays. "When I was at school, coming home was holiday. Mummey sometimes took us to see her mother, things like that. We went with dad to India once but that was a disaster. Sherlock caught something from the water and spent the entire trip in bed, driving the nanny mad and I just hated the heat."

"What about your dad?"

"He was there to work. He worked for the embassy back then."

"Not any more?" Mycroft began to sweat as the next dark pit came into view.

"He quit his job some half year ago, mummey said he got an offer from a company to run their international relations some days ago."

A stewardess appeared and greeted them friendly, asking if they would like anything to eat, an offer Mycroft declined again with too much force but Greg didn't seem to notice.

"Did your father agree with your decision to join the police?" 

Greg shrugged, inspecting his hands that lay in the middle of the table between them. "I think he was secretly pleased I followed his example but keeps saying I should have opted for something with more convenient working hours and less of the danger. Mum is a different story. She had high hopes for me, always wanted me to go to uni and stuff."

"You didn't want to?"

"I saw no point in drawing the entire clan into debt just so I could go. My sister did."

Mycroft nodded.

"Does that comply with your sources then?"

"Come again?" 

"Myc, I might not be your equal in intelligence but I know you did your research on me and my background a long time ago. There's little I could tell you aboout me you don't know yet, is there?" He watched Mycroft squirm in his seat for a second, his hands digging into the upholstery.

"I knew what I was getting myself into, it's fine. I don't mind." he added soothingly. "All is fine, this isn't a test." It didn't help, Mycroft grew pale and paler, breathing heavily. Just as he got out of his seat to get closer, Mycroft jumped from his, avoided his hand and made for the bathroom. And it dawned on Greg that he knew very little about what had gotten himself into.


	48. Madmen

"You have any appointments tonight?" Greg tried to keep up with Mycroft as he meandered through the crowds at arrivals.

"No, tomorrow after breakfast." Mycroft stopped, scanning the waiting people till he spotted a driver holding up a sign. Greg couldn't surpress a laugh.

"Whose idea was that then? Mr I. Land?"

"Anthea has a bit of a twisted sense of humour." Mycroft sighed but couldn't surpress a smile.

 

He tried not to be too surprised by the room as he entered. It was what he had expected and at the same time hadn't been able to imagine. For some reason the theme tune of Pretty Woman popped into his mind. Mycroft was busy negotiating with someone of the security staff as it seemed, his self-assured version firmly back in place. He still wasn't sure what it was he had witnessed on that plane just now, in best Holmes tradition the topic had been ignored as soon as Mycroft had returned to his seat. They would agree it were the turbulences, Greg decided.  

Their window looked right out onto a canal with houseboats full of flowers on each side. It probably was the last hour of the day they would have the chance to catch some sunshine.

"Wanna go for a walk? Might steady your nerves before tomorrow."

It took Mycroft a second again before he realized it was him who was addressed. He was looking at a letter that had been delivered as soon as they had arrived.

"Ahm, sure." He finally looked up, some of the tension slowly disappearing from his eyes.

Greg took a deep breath as they stepped into the street, amazed by how vibrant the colours of the city seemed in the sinking light.

"Myc, this isn't a race, for goodness sake!" he jogged to catch up with him, taking hold of his arm.

"Vacation, right. You mentioned." Mycroft muttered, taking his hand.

 

The sun long had disappeared when they walked back, speed diminishing the closer they got to their hotel. Dinner had been an experience as Greg had challenged Mycroft to order him the weirdest dish on the menue, a challenge he had accepted without any hestiation, conversing with the waiter in as it seemed flawless Dutch. It left them with a huge platter full of deep fried food and banana flavoured soda.

"What other languages do you speak?"

Mycroft blushed, pushing pieces of food over the plate with his long, pale index finger.

"Oh come on, go ahead, impress me." Greg giggled, leaning back into his chair to study the face opposite more closely.

"French, Dutch, obviously." he said as the silence continued and Mycroft shrugged.

"German?" Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Okay, too easy... let me think." Greg shoved another deep fried unidentifyable object into his mouth.

"Japanese?" it produced a tiny smile on the cheeks opposite.

"Blimey, that makes Chinese an easy bet. What about Korean?" Mycroft flinched.

"Right, I better stop." Greg sighed and Mycroft thought he could feel the man's disappointment physically. "You sure you don't want any of this?" Greg had tried to bridge the silence, pointing to the plate between them. Mycroft had shaken his head, eating wasn't an option tonight.

And now the hoteIs door was in view, a final bridge to cross before they would step back into the golden light of the lobby. 

"Anything you need to finish for tomorrow?"

"No. All yours." Mycroft stopped in his tracks, looking ahead and so did Greg.

"Brilliant." Greg's voice wavered.

"I'm inclined to agree." Mycroft whispered.

Things usually were quite straightforward once you crossed that moment of when things changed from friendly into something more physical. Sex, Mycroft found, was a game with simple rules to be followed. Greg seemed to enjoy himself or that at least was his evaluation as they crashed into the wall in the hallway of their suite. After all the ways he had made a fool of himself today, this seemed to be his chance to make up for lost ground. Thinking about how strange it must feel for Greg that he had to keep so many details of his life to himself while he knew so much about the older man's, didn't help with directing the bloodflow in the right direction and so he forced himself to think about something else as he stumbled towards their bed, pulling down Greg with him.

"Mycroft! Did you hear me?" He heard himself being addressed only through a veil of rushing blood in his ears.

"Sorry. What did you say?" He wanted to cry. This was going wrong, someone would get badly hurt in this and he was no longer sure he would survive it.

"Are you even in the same room?" Greg laughed.

"Of course." he answered, biting into his shoulder blade to make sure he would remember.

 

The boy bringing their breakfast already found him awake and dressed. Greg was sound asleep, Mycroft watched him slowly take possession of the entire bed, maybe in search him. As the driver knocked at the door he leaned over and pressed a kiss into Greg's hair, remembering well he hadn't liked him to leave without a word last time.

"You leaving?" he pushed himself half up, still disoriented with sleep.

"Yes, I'll call you when I can. Enjoy your day, breakfast is served in the other room."

"Good luck." he mumbled, falling back into the pillow.

 

He made his way through the museums, saw the nightwatch and tried to appreciate it, but little was there that could conceal that he spent the time waiting for Mycroft. Life began when he came and found him, wherever he was, beamed at him with those impossible eyes and carefully folded the jacket over his arm as a subconscious sign that work was over. Nobody knew them, nobody cared and that man became his very focal point of existence, his time with him those moments of life he breathed freely, a weight lifted he hadn't noticed before.

"That's what sets the Dutch painters apart from the style of their contemporaries."

Greg kept staring at the man who leaned very close towards a picture, adjusting his glasses to see some detail. The man he had seen every inch of and still he was surprised of his proximity every time he returned to him.

"You really aren't interested in art, are you?" Mycroft smirked.

"Sorry, I just got distracted. And to be brutally honest, I think I have been to more museums since yesterday than ever in my life before."

Mycroft smiled relentlessly and Greg wondered if he would develop muscle hangover some time soon from so much unusual exercise in that particular area.

"So what would you like to do tomorrow then?" A picture of Mycroft's pale body on the beige sheets of their room flashed through his mind as Mycroft leaned over and ran his lips along his temple, drawing him into his arms. People walked past them as they stood there, willing time to stop in their own little bubble.

"Mycroft?" Greg tried to melt even deeper in the arm around his back.

"Hm?" Looking up he saw Mycroft's eyes were closed, he looked so much younger when relaxed.

"Mycroft, I think I've fallen in love with you." he held his breath, watching the crowd around over Mycroft's shoulder.

"You madman!" Mycroft whispered, a hand fisting almost painfully hard into Greg's shirt.

 


	49. Of Missed Calls

"I'm not going to return to London for a while." Mycroft played with his knife on the table, avoiding Greg's eyes. "I, uhm. There is some more travelling I have to do."

Greg kept cutting his food, trying hard not to mind. "Is there anything I'm allowed to know?"

"It's not...it's rather likely I shall return in a couple of days, two weeks at most. Of course I'll make sure you return safely."

He had always complained about his clingy girlfriends who wouldn't understand about his workload and his priorities. Now he found himself with some of their phrases at the tip of his tongue. He swallowed them down with a sip from his glass. Still, one of them refused to be washed away unspoken.

"It's not because you regret any of this, is it?"

Mycroft huffed and shook his head. "Don't be daft."

He knew that Greg wasn't. This was how it started. People said they were fine then they demanded him to be there more, to share, he couldn't, they left. Stage one had begun. Maybe there was something he could say to apeace him at least for another short time. He didn't want to lose this just yet.

"I'll make sure to find a phone now and then?" Mycroft cleared his throat when he noticed Greg's eyes were more distant than usual.

"I don't try to be complicated. It's just..."

"This is my job, Greg."

"I know." Greg nodded and swallowed a big lump of bread.

 

Greg asked for a stroll along the waterfront for their last evening and Mycroft agreed without hesitation, out of guilt about the way they would part in the morning, Greg knew. He accepted the sacrifice without any further comment, Mycroft clinging to his hand with feverish fear.

"Tell me something about you, nobody else knows." Greg muttered, smiling over the pain gripping his guts.

Mycroft slightly shook his head, attempting a smile as well but failing somewhere halfway. He looked out over the port, watching a cruise ship getting ready to leave.

"I never was keen on returning home from work. I've begun to reconsider."

 

When Greg woke the next morning, the arm around him was gone. How he managed to escape without even waking him was one of the many mysteries he held. The boy bringing breakfast informed him he would be picked up at ten. He nodded, watching him unload his tray. As the door closed behind him, he pulled the duvet back up, trying to ignore he was alive.

 

"Mr Holmes expects you to return home within a week. Otherwise I am instructed to have your accounts blocked." The lawyer obviously felt uncomfortable with the situation. Sherlock wondered if that was because of the threats his brother surely had brought forward in case he would fail to convince Sherlock to return or whether it was because he had called him one of God's most stupid creatures for asking him to not interfere during the trial.

"Tell my brother I'm not a puppy who will run just because he wants me to. I've got other plans and I don't need his or dad's money for that."

"Is that what you would like me to tell him?"

"You can tell him whatever you feel like." With that he took Mrs Hudson's arm, leading her towards the exit. 

"So you are not coming to London with me?" She looked at him confused.

"No, don't feel like it. I will never get rid of him there. Just want some peace and quiet."

"Your brother means well, you know that Sherlock." she had that motherly tone on herself that made him cringe and at the same time it was impossible to disagree. He did nevertheless.

"My brother means well for himself. He needs people he can push around and I have filled that role long enough.

"Where are you going then?" Sherlock thought of the students he had met about a fortnight ago. They were doing a tour around the world before returning to uni. Backpackers. Seemed like the ultimate idea. You could be with people or choose to leave any time convenient. Legtimised disconectedness.The ultimate solution to his eternal dilemma.

"Dunno, do some travelling. My share of Frank's inheritance should take me far enough for him not to find me."

"You think you are fit to do this on your own?" she tattered and he glared at her.

"I'm not an addict. I choose to or not to. It's going to keep my mind busy and then I have no reason." he snapped and she tutted but wouldn't disagree.

 

He sought out the places they met and studied them for an afternoon. He wouldn't want to stick out in any way. Most of them were about his age but like another species. Happy, bubbling with excitement all the time, pretentious and unbelievably simple. Conversation seemed to be limited to three topics; where they had been before, how they liked where they were right now and what they did when they weren't travelling. The intruiging thing was that they seemed to know each other, met again and again. Like a huge clique that kept contact though going round the globe. He picked up interest like a sniffer dog a scent when a name was dropped he recognized beyond doubt. 

"I met Rowan in San Fransisco. About a month ago. Why, you know him too?" The girl tried to speak with a heavy Australian accent despite being German. She wanted him to ask where she had been to before or maybe she was fishing for compliments on her English, Sherlock didn't care, she would be of no further use. With a moove well practiced on Molly, he leaned closer.

"He's my brother." 

"Oh my God, now I see it, you look like totally alike." she shrieked and Sherlock felt a headache creeping up. 

"Why aren't you like travelling together?"

"It's supposed to be a surprise, he doesn't know I'm coming to meet him."

"That's so like totally cute. I sure won't tell anyone, promise. Oh my God, I wished I had a brother like you."

 

"San Fransisco? Sherlock, what am I going to do with you?"

"Stop the moaning, mummey. I'm hardly your problem."

"How can you say such a thing? Your father has started a new job this week, I'm sure he could find something for you there. I'd prefer you to return to university, it's not yet too late to pick up that degree again, maybe not Cambridge, though I do regret you leaving there, you seemed to enjoy it."

"Mummey. You wanted me to call, I did. Goodbye."

"Don't you dare hang up on me young man. I know you and Mycroft think I have no clue about what is going on but I do. I know what you got yourself into again though Mycroft is lying about it an so are you. Did you just hang up on me? Sherlock!" she yelled into the speaker though the computer voice informed her with unfaltering insistence that the line had been disconnected. 

Bernhard leaned in the door and sighed. She gave him an angry look. "Ah, don't do...that." she smacked him with a teatowel as she passed him towards the garden.

 

With his return to London, the waiting began. The office and back again, every day, passing Sherlock's flat each time. He met Molly once or twice just to be in the companionship of someone who would understand what it meant to pine for a Holmes, though he never mentioned it with a single syllable. Instead they sat under the tin roof of a cafe's patio, rain drumming a numbing rythm above their head. Sherlock had called her. Asked her to check on his mail for him. He would be in San Fransisco, for how long he knew not yet. 

"He just disappears. Like that." Molly snapped her fingers, deep disbelief and confusion tainting her voice. And Greg understood.

"Like a Fata Morgana." he muttered, staring into his tea.

"Exactly. I mean the flat looks like he just stepped out to get some milk. And then he is gone for weeks."

"Left without farewell. And it's just not fair. Because you have no chance but to wait." He drew a sharp breath realizing the way Molly looked at him. "I guess." he added, trying to focus the discussion back on Sherlock. She gave him another inquisitive look before focussing back on analysing every syllable Sherlock had thrown at her down the line like bones to a starving dog.

 

He phoned Victor watching the sun set over the sea. He called Victor and talked to his voicemail about his day. Told him he hated the place. Called again and cried a little. Yelled at him for not picking up, ever. Still, he called his voicemail several times every night, beginning to record little summaires of his day. About how he traced down his half brother. How he had followed him around town and studied his life. He seemed a happy person. A fact that frightened Sherlock and gave him hope at the same time. If Rowan managed to get to grips with existence, this could only mean that Sherlock had caused his own misery all by himself. It also meant he had a chance of getting it right. Like Rowan who went to the beach for surfing and travelled the world with a backpack and two pairs of trainers. Who flirted with girls on the street, who ate ice cream and seemed to enjoy it. Sherlock would try to imagine Victor's part of the conversation, filled in the worried looks as he explained his reasons for stalking his other brother. In a way he hated Mycroft doing to him. He realized there was no good reason. And Victor gave him his best I-told-you-so look.

His brother's office number appeared several times on the screen of his phone and he listened to the ringing but never picked up. He didn't want the shame his pity would bring. 

 


	50. The Other One

The hairdresser clearly disagreed when he asked her to dye his hair blonde and at some point when the chemicals burnt in his nose he was tempted into agreeing for a moment.

"Were you together for a long time?" she asked snipping arund his ears.

"Pardon?" she smirked at his confusion over the mirror, rolling around him on her little chair.

"This is typical break-up behaviour. I thought you wouldn't do...that without a painful reason.

Sherlock looked intrigued. "Oh, is that so? I didn't know. But no. I'm actually here to meet my half brother and I don't want him to recognize me."

Conversation kind of died down after that but he didn't mind, filing away ideas about why the other customers might be here.

"Keep away from salty water and too much sun, it would lighten the colour further and damage your hair." she snarled as he paid. Sherlock nodded and made for the beach.

 

He looked like the kind of person that would be attracted to engage in conversation if he looked clueless enough. Which wasn't all too hard, surfing had not been in his repertoire so far. It only took him two spectacular failures before Rowan noticed him. They watched each other from the corner of their eyes.

"You actually need to move your feet further apart!" Rowan shouted eventually, shieldinig his bronzed face against the sun. Even without the lacking skills, Sherlock stood out of the crowd of surfers, his pale skin giving him away as a new arrival. Sherlock tried and took another, graceless plunge. As his head appeared back at the surface, Rowan was next to him, smiling absolutely clueless about who he was looking at.

 

Rowan was easy to become friends with. Four hours of futile attempts in surfing and Sherlock felt like he had known him for a long time. He was maybe two or three years younger and as they shared a pack of fries in the shade of a food van, he wondered what it would have been like to have him in his corner during their childhood. He clearly had picked up their fathers' charm and easy ways with people. Rowan smiled when he noticed Sherlock's continued stare.

"I know. You look somehow familiar too. Just can't pin it down."

Sherlock frowned. There had been little mentioning of the other one between him and Mycroft but seeing him he assumed any face to face time would end in tears on either side. Rowan clearly wouldn't live up to Mycroft's expectations towards people. His happy chatter brought him dangerously close to Mycroft's goldfish category, a line of distinction Sherlock had worked hard to cross as a child. Mycroft would be frustrated with seeing someone related to him doing all the living he denied himself for some reason. Rowan on the other hand would probably find Mycroft dull, imposing and insulting, a feeling he shared most of the time.

"How long are you going to stay?" Sherlock jumped, he had locked out of the conversation completely.

"Hm, as long as I like. Don't really have anywhere else I need to be at the moment."

"Well, you clearly need to work on that surfing." Rowan snorted, coughing on a piece of frie.

 

There were another three missed calls from Mycroft on his phone and Sherlock began to wonder why he wouldn't just leave a message. He fired the thing into an armchair in the next corner of his hotel room, looking for his wallet. With a satisfied smile he closed the door behind himself on his way to meeting Rowan for dinner once more.

 

"Sir, if ever you would like him to be informed in time, it must happen now. I'm running out of reasons to keep the relatives at bay."

"I know." Mycroft snapped, rolling his eyes at Anthea on the other side of the line. He sighed.

"Find me an address I can post this damn thing to. He wants it the hard way, it's what he will get."

"I could always try and phone him from another number he won't recognize."

"Very well, it might be worth a try. But if he doesn't pick up by tomorrow, the darn thing is going into the mail." he hung up with too much force as someone called for Tristam.

 

The invitation just came natural and Sherlock accepted with gratitude. The travelling satisfied his urge to keep moving. Standing on the porch of his half brother's mother however, somehow felt odd. As far as Rowan was concerned he was just some graduate from England touring the world. He intended to keep it that way. Somehow he had expected some kind of resemblance between her and his mother but he couldn't find any. He scolded himself as he thought about it, why would his father go looking for something he already had at home? Leonora was lively and loud, a lean figure with dark hair and bronzed face. She hardly looked older than fourty. The hug was too tight to feel familiar, she smelled of baking. The house was small but modern, some redecoration seemed to have taken place recently.

"You prefer tea I think?" she said, calling him back into their white kitchen that still smelled of paint faintly.

"Ah, yes thank you."

"I'm so happy Rowan is making friends on his tour. He has seen a lot of places lately and I'm so happy he has the chance now."

Sherlock watched her as she prepared the tea. "Now?" he asked, sounding rather sheepishly.

"Oh yes, I could never afford such frollity before. But now that his father is sending money every month, Rowan can finish his course and well, do travelling."

"How did you meet his father?" Sherlock bit his own tongue hard, noticing this was an unnatural question for someone not familiar with the story but Leonora didn't seem to have noticed. She gave a hearty laugh, placing the cup in front of him.

"Ah, I once was a secretary at the embassy. He worked there for some weeks. But he was married, so..." she laughed again, padding his arm.

"Weren't you angry he chose his wife over you?"

She leaned her head as if pondering the question, looking into his eyes. "I was, yes. He said he loved me very much but he had two sons and his wife was very ill."

"She was? What did she have?"

"Why are you interested in these old stories?"she smiled and Sherlock shrugged.

"He said she had depression and that both his sons were difficult to handle, she couldn't be left alone with them. I think the older one had just started school and it was talked about him being autistic. One of those wunderkinder who can do anything but severly lack in the social department."

"How old was Rowan when he left?"

"Oh, he didn't know there would be a child when we seperated. I didn't want him to stay for the wrong reasons."

Sherlock stirred his tea, the spoon hitting the cup with melodious clings. "And then Rowan went to find him." he stated, not looking up.

She pulled back the chair opposite and leaned her head into her hands, studying his face. "Yes. I didn't want him to but in the end it was for the best. They seem to have a lot in common and get along very well. He offered Rowan to find him a placement with an embassy. I think he is proud of him."

Her eyes beamed with joy and Sherlock burned his lower lip on the hot rim of the cup. He sucked it into his mouth and bit down to cover the pain with another one.

 

He feigned an emergency the next morning, saying he would have to return home immediatly. There were promises of frequent calls as Rowan gave him a slap on the back at the airport. Being faced with the decision where to go next, he suddenly felt something he would never admit to later in his life. Before calling his mother's number, he purchased a ticket to London.


	51. A Funeral

He was only midldy surprised and only outwardly annoyed when Mycroft leaned against a car, waiting for him. Sherlock handed him his backpack wordlessly, slouching into the back of the car. 

"Why?" Mycroft's eyes turned piercing him to the seat as they got onto the motorway.

"I wanted to know."

"And you feel any wiser now?"

Sherrlock ignored the mocking, he knew Mycroft died inside from curiosity.

"He is nothing like you. Friendly, chatty, stupid."

"So nothing like you either." Mycroft said and Sherlock watched farms flying past his window, waiting for the silence to fill the back of the car completely again.

"I tried to call you several times, Sherlock."

"And I thought ignoring your calls would be a sufficient sign I didn't want to talk to you."

He could feel the anger in Mycroft rise and seep through his clothes. He didn't turn to look at him. 

"I wasn't calling to chat, Sherlock! I had my reasons."

"Well I'm here now, so tell me the important news!" he snapped, finally facing the older one.

"Oh, you are mistaken! It's not important in any wider perspective and certainly not to me. For me this is just another nuisance keeping me from attending to more important things!" Mycroft's voice got dangerously close to loud, and Sherlock's attention was awakened, his brother never turned loud towards him. Staff, their mother, even dad but he was usuallly just too unimportant to produce any kind of emotion iof this scale in his brother.He watched his brother's eyes carefully. They softened again into disinterest quickly. Mycroft turned and produced a parcel wrapped loosely in brown paper, dropping it into his lap. The fabric within felt familiar. He didn't open it but looked at his brother.

"We found him in a wasteland. He looked...bad. Mum cleaned the scarf, I thought it might satisfy your childish tendency for keeping souvenirs."

Sherlock kept looking at him, his eyes not moving from Mycroft's face.

"I managed to postpone the funeral until tomorrow. You arrived just about in time."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"Well, Gavin certainly wasn't amused about it but..."

"They..."

"Yes." Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Apparently they had agreed to turn their relation more exclusive and long-term."

Silence settled again and Sherlock listened to the sounds of the motor below.

"He wasn't worth it. Not worth you...Sherlock." Mycroft whispered, looking outside the window.

"You know nothing about it."Sherlock hissed, looking out the other side.

 

"She doesn't know." Mycroft muttered, waving at their mother in the doorway.

"Does she ever?" Sherlock answered, which produced a smirk in his brother's face their mother misinterpreted badly, drawing him into a hug with full motherly force.

"Both my sons under one roof, it must be Christmas."

"Not yet, thank God for that." Mycroft rubbed her back while trying to free himself. She gave him a playful slap for it before turning towards Sherlock who for once had no inclination to deny her. He buried his face in her neck, though it meant bending down quite some way. She smelled of roses. He liked roses so much better than cake.

 

Mycroft locked the door of his childhood bedroom twice, blocking out the sound of his brother's low voice and Leopold's high, giggled, responses. 

"Greg?"

"Mycroft!" Greg's voice wavered between surprise and joy. He could hear people in the background, probably the pub again.

"I'm back."

"Where are you?" the voices in the back slowly died down, he was probably hurrying outside.

"I hope to be back in London tomorrow night."

"My place?"

"See you there."

 

He could have pointed out that there were plenty of other rooms Sherlock could have slept in, but somehow he didn't remember when he found his younger brother dozing on a thin matress on the floor of his room.

"Leo's in mine."

"I know." Mycroft carefully folded his dressing gown over the chair before finding a way around his brother's sprawled out body on the floor to his bed. The duvet had grown too short. Either his arms or his feet were sticking out.

"I'll drive you there. You can borrow one of my suits." he said, setting the alarm clock.

"Not sure I want to."

"I know you want to. Told mum we're going to see nan's grave."

Sherlock huffed. "She believed that?"

Mycroft listened to Sherlock's breath evening out in the dark. The light from the window made his wild hair stand out against the shadows of the room.

"Blonde? Again?" he asked, half asleep.

"Sleep, idiot." Sherlock yawned, drawing the duvet up over his head.

 

He was to be buried on the family estate, a private burial ground close to a chapel, shielded agains the blue sky by tall trees. There was already a crowd of people assembled, a black spot within the green idyll of the estate. Mycroft swirled his umbrella and gently pushed him towards them.

They stood apart from the rest, Sherlock recognized few of them and had no inclination to get too close to the hysterically crying mother or the apathic Gavin who stood next to the hole the hearse was to be lowered into, motion- and expressionless. He had thought about bringing flowers but standing in the shop he couldn't decide what would be appropriate and so he had left, empty handed. The vicar spoke in a low and lulling way, then held the hand of the parents for a moment before turning to leave. The crowd made theri way past them as well, hugging Gavin and then it was over and Sherlock noticed he had waited for something to happen within himself but it didn't happen. There was confusion and insecurity about how to act but nothing more. He watched them leave and then suddenly he noticed Gavin had spotted him. He straightened his back and prepared to fight for his right to be here. But Gavin didn't seem to have any fighting in mind. He stood in front of him, tired, neglected grooming, the same petty bourgeois attire as usual.

"I had hoped you would come." Gavin said, holding out his hand which Sherlock took with hesitation and eventually nodded.

"Would you like to stay for the reception?"

"No, I don't think so. My brother is waiting." Sherlock studied his shoes but nodded in the direction of the car.

Gavin looked at him for a while and Sherlock grew more and more uneasy, feeling a blush creeping up his neck.

"I'm sorry. For everything. I guess."

Gavin once more nodded. "Thank you. I like your hair by the way."

Sherlock searched for the mockery in the statement but couldn't find it. He waved as Gavin turned, hurrying towards the house where guests were gathering on the terrace. The birds in the trees sang unimpressed by the open grave at their feet. Two people apprached from the chapel, slowly beginning to shovel the earth back into the hole. Sherlock stepped a little closer, giving the tomb a final look. Standing there he could see Mycroft leaning against the car, arms crossed, watching him. Shoving his hands into the borrowed suit's pockets, he hurried towards him.

"Where next?" Mycroft asked, getting into the dirver's seat.

"A hairdresser." Sherlock answered seemingly unshaken, secretly pleased by his brother's confusion


	52. Bloodlines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only noticed today that an entire paragraph was missing in the Waste Land chapter. Nothing overly important for the plotline but if you are into fluff you might want to go back and reread the first paragraph. Sorry!!!

"Hello stranger!" Greg called form the kitchen as Mycroft closed the door to his flat behind him. He wouldn't ask where he had acquired a key.

"Hello." Mycroft answered carefully unlacing his shoes. Noticing the messy pile of Greg's pairs, he began sorting them, lining them up in one straight queue with his own at the very end.

"If I had know you came to tidy up, I wouldn't have spent the afternoon cleaning." Greg smirked, leaning in the door behind his back. 

"It just makes me nervous." Mycroft crossed his arms in front of his chest, giving his work another, careful look until he felt Greg's arm tighten around his waist.

"Come in you weird, lovely, man." he giggled into Mycroft's neck.

"Sherlock's back." he leaned into the touch, allowing himself to be pulled towards the couch.

"And?"

"We went to Victor's funeral. I hope he can keep it together. I promised him to keep my mobile on."

Greg dropped his arms that had been sneaking up Mycroft's shirt. "That sort of killed the mood."

"I'm sorry. Won't mention him again tonight, I promise. What is that burning in your kitchen?"

"Oh shit!" Greg jumped over the backrest of the couch, running for the kitchen from which thin lines of grey smoke were escaping towards the living room.

 

"Victor...is that the boy from the junk yard?"

Mycroft nodded, scraping the black of his meat.

"How? I mean if you can?" Greg spoke with his mouth full of salad, he was digging in as if he hadn't eaten in days.

Mycroft looked at his plate, still trying to find a piece of food he trusted himself to actually eat. "He was a photographer for various newspapers and a rather good one actually. He photographed some important people doing things he ought not to photograph and so they made sure it wouldn't happen again."

Greg's eyes sparked. "Like mafia?"

Mycroft smirked. "No, he died as he lived. He was threatening to include pictures of his lovers and him in his next exhibition but would have abstained from the idea for the right price."

"Uh, blackmail. Bad story." Greg had cleared his plate, including the burnt bits, and got up to fetch a cigarette. He offered him one.

"Is that why you don't do holiday snapshots?"

"You're still offended by that?" Mycroft blew the blue smoke towards the ceiling, glad the state of his plate had not been commented on.

"Not offended, just surprised. You don't think I would ever...like..."

Mycroft seldomly had to go to the length of raising both eyebrows to indicate a conversation was becoming ridiculous from his perspective, but he did this time.

"Well, if you ever had planned on doing so, you now know how things like this are dealt with." he extinguished the cigarette, rolling his eyes at the horror in Greg's eyes. Poison would be so much easier anyway, the speed at which Greg usually devoured his food would make it impossible for him to taste anything.

"I'm kidding Greg." he added softly, running a finger over the back of the man's hand.

"Not funny. Were they close? I mean Sherlock and him?"

"Sherlock certainly was. I didn't tell him what I told you just now, figuring it out will keep him busy through the first stages of grief, or at least that is what I hope. He wouldn't believe me to give an objective account of matters anyway."

 

Greg's flat came close to a torture chamber for him. He could stand clutter during the day, but at night, he felt threatened by it. Especially when his mind was busy dealing with more important matters. With Greg's head resting on his painfully empty stomach, he was unable to move anywhere. The detective was snoring softly. He yearned for a cigarette. Instead he stretched to reach his mobile. He had turned the sound off, feeling he owed Greg at least two or three hours of undivided attention.

 

Dad's here. SH

 

The message was roughly fifteen minutes old. Shielding off the blue light of the screen with his hand, he typed. Greg stirred, his hand wandering down his leg.

 

There's money in the uppermost drawer of my desk. Call a cab. MH

 

Mum. Can't leave her. SH

 

Specify!!! MH

 

He told her he's going to move to town during the week... for work. She's popping those pills like smarties. SH

 

For a second he wondered how he could convince his father to meet him in a wasteland at night. "Greg, I'm sorry." he moved the wandering hand with something like regret and stumbled towards the other room.

 

It took a while before someone picked up the phone at his parents' house. Not surprising given the time of day and the housekeeper certainly didn't sound too amused.

 

"I'm so sorry, Grace. Is my mother still up?"

"Just about Mr. Holmes." she sighed and he could hear her walk accross the hall.

"Mycroft? Everything alright, dear?" she sounded worringly normal.

"Mummey, I'm so sorry but I just had a call from work again. I will have to be there tomorrow morning very early, very urgent and the nanny is sick. I know you had them all week but, you think..."

"Of course." there was sincere joy and relief in her voice.

"It's just, would you mind if I had you picked up like now? Take Sherlock with you if he wants to... I won't be in though, you still got the keys?"

"You are working too much son, just like your father."

"I know." he sighed and rang off.

Leaving a message for the nanny that she should take the day off tomorrow, he crawled back into bed. Greg's looked up at him, his hair completely disshevelled.

"The world's falling apart without you, isn't it?"

"Depends on your definiton of world." he muttered, drawing the man's arm back around his waist while typing a message for his driver. He waited for Greg to find back to sleep before opening his phone once more.

 

I don't think I have to remind you of our agreement? I would hate having to intervene, dad. Fix this before I do it. MH

Blackmailing. He certainly understood the concept.

 

"Leave some of that cake for your brother and the children!" His mother was fussing with some of Mycroft's suits that she had hung from the cupboards in his kitchen. Sherlock was leaning against the counter, watching her dealing with all those household things.

"It's only for his best if I keep him from overeating. With that face he can't afford to grow fat on top."

"Sherlock!"

"What?" he giggled as she playfully pinched his arm.

"Besides, I think your brother does have someone in his life he doesn't tell us about."

"What makes you think that?" He added another layer of spray cream to the remaining piece of cake.

She held out a cloth brush to him that she had used on some of the suits' trousers. "He seems to have dogs. Hs trousers are full of those. But it must be some of those nasty, little creatures, the hair is never higher than his knees."

"Mummey." Sherlock rolled his eyes. 

"Yes, yes, I tell you. And he often gets calls on his mobile and he always greets the caller with Tristam. Hence it's not a woman."

"Well, there is several things wrong with your deduction." Sherlock took the brush, looking at it closely and sniffing. "That's dog hair indeed. Corgi I'd think. But it could be a client's dog. And I still think it's a woman."

"Who takes a Corgi to work? And why should only women have Corgies?" she looked at him with stubborn conviction. "And what about Tristam?"

"Mummey, it's a woman and he calls himself Tristam."

"You are being a silly bean. Why should your brother call himself Tristam?"

Sherlock sighed heavily. "Is there more cake, mummey?"

 

Greg had been surprised to find him still in his flat when he woke up. Mycroft had liked such surprise had tunred into something much more physical before Greg had to get dressed in a hurry to get to the office. He had the driver stop at a newsagent on his way home. The job add should be in today's Times.

"You're not thinking about leaving us, are you Sir?" the driver joked as he saw him flapping through the ads in the back of the car.

"No, I'm actually planning to get rid of my mother by getting her work. Ah, there it is." He drew a pen from his pocket and circled the advertisement in question.

"What is she looking for?"

"She's a mathematician."

"Expected nothing else, knowing you."

Mycroft gave him a smile before getting back to studying the paper.

 

She was knitting when he entered, hung his umbrella.

"Hi Myc, Sherlock has built a huge castle in the hallway." Lissi giggled, face flushed and hair dampened with sweat.

"Has he indeed?" he smiled, waving at her. There was no doubt the girl had developed a huge crush on her new playmate. "Well, don't overdo it, alright?" He knew his words would go unheard when he saw Leopold storming along the gallery, one of his ties knotted around his head and a broom in hand screaming at the top of his voice. He wouldn't stop to greet him.

Mycroft leaned over the back of the armchair to kiss his mother's cheek. "Thank you."

"My pleasure, son." she dropped the work at beamed a smile at him. "There is some dinner left but no cake, Sherlock has developed an uncharacteristic appetite."

"I ate the club, but thank you." He stopped her from getting out of the chair, occupying the one opposite.

"The university is looking for mathematicians. Nothing special, just people offering extra lesson in basic math. I talked to the Dean over lunch, he said he would welcome your application."

"I'm hardly up to scratch with these things, Myc." she picked up the needles again, counting stitches under her breath.

"It's basic stuff, first semester modules. You could do that half asleep." he pushed the paper over the coffee table between them and she smiled at him over the rim of her glasses.

"Myc, darling. I know what you are trying to do but you worry too much. I'm a grown up and can look after myself."

Mycroft rubbed his temples. "I just don't like the way he treats you. I would like to see you occupied with something more...appropriate."

Something upstairs dropped to the floor, it sounded like glass bursting.

"There goes the hallway cupboard." Mycroft sighed, getting up to look at the damage.

"I'll think about it." his mother muttered as he reached the door to the hall.

 

"He cutted himself!" Lissi screamed, as he slithered into the living room.

"Who?" she dropped the knitting quickly.

"Myc. He picked up a shard and cutted his arm."

"Cut, child, he cut himself." Sherlock corrected sharply, hurrying into the room. "It's deep, he'll need to go to hospital. Where are my shoes?"

"I'm fine!" Mycroft protested from the kitchen, pressing a teatowel against the inside of his arm.

"No you are not. You will listen to your brother. Sherlock, get the car." their mother shrieked.

Sherlock fished a shoe from under the couch and hurried into the kitchen.

"Keys, mother!"

"I founded them!" Lissi stormed towards him, the keyring for the car in hand.

"You found them. Thank you." Mycroft took them from her hand but Sherlock snatched them away.

"Come on." Sherlock pulled him towards the door, adding another teatowel to the one that was slowly turning red.

 

"You should call dad."

"What?"

"You might need a blood transfusion and mine is hardly donor material." Sherlock stated calmly as he looked for a parking spot in front of the hospital. "He must be somewhere in the city, so close enough to get here in time."

"Shouldn't they have some blood in stock?"

"It works much better with that of relatives and your bloodgroup is rare." Sherlock opened the door for him and supported the arm as he hurried him to the entrance.

"I'd rather die." Mycroft hissed, but Sherlock didn't listen, already talking to a doctor he had trapped in the middle of the hallway.

 

"It's fine, I called my boss, we keep stock of transfusions for all employees at the office, apparently." Mycroft didn't look at his father when he entered the room he had been parked in.

"I heard. I first thought it was Sherlock, he was so confused when he called me."

"Would it have made a difference then?"

His father sighed, dropping into a chair opposite the bed. "Not in the way you think."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mycroft snapped, trying to get into his jacket with the bandaged arm.

"Come on, I'm taking you both home." Bernhard said, collecting Mycroft's remaining belongings from the table.


	53. Damaged Goods

"Greg?" Mycroft had been standing in his kitchen for half an hour without speaking a word, nibbling on a single slice of cucumber. He didn't dare to comment in any way, the man looked too far gone into his own world.

"You think you could run a test for me without anyone noticing? I don't really want to take this into work."

"I'm not sure I could keep it from Sherlock, he's been basically sleeping at Bart's."

"Ah. Well I don't think he'd suspect anything." He produced two test tubes with cotton buds in them.

"It will take a day or two, I'm sure your people would be much faster." He tried to smuggle another piece of cucumber into Mycroft's hand but he just held it, staring into the off. 

"It's not...no hurry."

 

"What are you working at?"

"Case."

"Yes, I can see that."

"So why do you ask?" Sherlock snapped, pointing Molly to get him another slide for the microscope.

"Who's the client?"

"There is none, It's just...practice." He sighed when she wouldn't go away and kept staring at him. "The body has already been buried but I found the cleaning rag that has been used to wipe blood stenches from the victim's scarf. I want to see if it is just his or someone's else's."

"If this isn't for Lestrade, you might want to move over so I can use the equipment as well because I actually have an urgent test to run for Greg." she answered in an untypical fit of resistance.

"Nothing in Greg's universe is urgent." he sputtered but started to collect his slides, moving towards the other end of the table. "What's the test?"

"Paternity test."

"I will never understand how people can be in any doubt about something so fundamental. I mean how many...mates must one have to forget who the father of the unfortunate offspring would be?" She blinked at him, clearly negotiating if it was worth getting into the discussion about the fundamentals of human life but decided otherwise. As she failed to produce an answer, Sherlock sighed again, packing together his slides.

"I'll be late for dinner." he stated, already fastening the scarf around his neck.

"Dinner? You mean my place? I didn't plan on cooking...okay fine." she chirped as Sherlock didn't stop to look back.

 

"You will have to make a decision some time, Tristam. I'm more than happy whatever way you decide but it's been months. It wouldn't be fair on them."

Q's house lay in an idyllic garden that could make you forget you were in the middle of town. Mycroft picked a daisy from the grass underneath his deckchair, blinking into the afternoon sun.

"Go, have a look if there is actually someone. I'll make a decision once I know what the alternative actually looks like. I won't hand them over to just anyone because they share parts of their genepool." he crushed the flower between two fingers after giving it a close look.

"Did you ever talk to your inspector about this?"

Mycroft sat up in his chair, back suddenly straightening. Q smiled at him, slowly moving to face him. "You are allowed a life of your own, you know that, right? And taking him with you to Amsterdam is hardly subtle."

"We were talking about the Russian missile program I faintly recall." Mycroft reached for his briefcase behind the deckchair.

 

"Mummey wants me and Sherlock to come for lunch on Sunday." They lay on the cold tiles of Greg's bathroom, sharing a cigarette.

"I don't tkink you will have any luck convincing Sherlock to actually leave the premises of Bart's. He's been working non-stop on that Victor thing." Greg turned so his bare chest was pressing into Mycroft's as he reached for the cigarette. He held it for him as he took a lungful before falling back towards the floor.

"Can't believe how long it is taking him to figure it out."

"Yes, I know you are the smart one."Greg mocked him.

"I am." Mycroft answered, playfully running his foot along Greg's leg.

"What do you think is the occasion?"

"Her childish need for family and harmony?"

"Oh, that reminds me. Your test thing came back." Greg got up to find the envelope.

"And?" Mycroft stayed on the ground, taking another pull.

"Related." was the answer from the other room.

"Ah." Mycroft muttered, finishing the cigarette.

Greg returned, handing him the paper. "Sorry, I opened it with all the other stuff that came in in the morning. Hope that's okay?"

"Sure."

"Everything alright? You look...pale all of a sudden."

"I shouldn't smoke." Mycroft got up, making for the toilet.

 

 

They mostly ignored each other if they met at the club, a nod all the acknowledgement he granted his father.Now elderly man was sitting in a corner, studying several papers. Mycroft watched him for a while, taking in the familiar posture and trying to organize his overheating brain. 

He foled the papers neatly when Mycroft occupied the chair opposite, hands buried in his coat and looked at him expectantly.

"I'm your son." the envelope that had been buring a hole into his pocket landed in the middle of the wonky coffetable. Bernhard looked at it but wouldn't pick it up. 

"That must be a disappointment to you." his father finally said, handing the papers back. "To me it isn't, which might surprise you." he added looking straight into Mycroft's face. His son avoided the gaze, watching two waiters cleaning away trays nearby instead. The silence prolonged as he observed the young man opposite breathing heavily. He could almost feel his despair and anger physically.

"How's the arm?" he asked eventually, calling his son back from a place far away. Mycroft gave the bandaged wrist a look as if he noticed it for the first time, nodding.

"What made you question it?" he finally asked, looking right through him.

Bernhard held his breath and licked his lips, trying to find a loose end in the story he could start at.

"Your mother was beautiful when she was young." he began, noticing this wasn't the right end to start when Mycroft's face deformed at the implications of the simple statement.

"Let me finish." he sighed, leaning closer to his son who still determinedly did not look at him.

"I met her at the college, she was looking for people she could sign up for some kind of committee, might have been the May Ball. She was the most beautiful and smartest and charming creature I had ever met. And I was way out of her ways. I mean it was never spoken about it in that way but I was there on a scholarship and though she had one, she certainly didn't need it.People didn't...mix that way. She soon found herself someone much more suitable and I thought her lost to me until one night I found her completely crushed and sobbing in the gardens at night. That git had found himself a better deal and well...those were different times. Her father would have called it "damaged goods". When she told me you were on the way about a months later, I never asked, I was just so glad I had her. And it didn't make a difference."

Mycroft's gaze had shifted towards his eyes as he spoke, a glimpse of the boy in them that once had waited by the door whenever he came home.

"Mycroft I know your opinion on me is...low and that you have decided I'm the villain in this story but I hope you understand that I loved you, always, and I wanted you to have everything I never had and I understand I have done many things wrong trying to make sure you would get it. But to me, you always were my son."

"Mummey says we have a lot in common. I don't see it." his son crossed his arms studying him closely.

"I see your mother whenever I look at either of you, I guess, it's just that way, you see what you want to see."

"I guess." Mycroft put the envelope back into the pocket of his coat, getting ready to leave. "Gotta go." he added, turning his face so he couldn't see his eyes.

"See you on Saturday and make sure you bring your brother." Bernhard answered, reopening the papers.


	54. Responsibility

"Your help has been much appreciated, thank you." Nathan got out of his chair in his new office in Westminster as Mycroft packed his belongings to leave. He smiled a thin, patient smile at the man he had been going to school with and whom the latest election had washed into parliament.

"I never understood how you keep all those things in mind, I keep forgetting stuff." It was a nervous giggle and Mycroft found some pity in himself and tried to comfort him. "It will come with time. I'm sure you soon get the hang of the job."

"Ha, not so sure about that. Dad keeps telling me I'm a complete failure at this and I begin to think he is right. Never mind. If you ever wanted to, you could turn these services into a proper job you know." Nathan kept rambling on while fillng two glasses with gin. Mycroft gave his pocket watch an uneasy look. It wasn't even noon.

"I can't follow I'm afraid." he answered taking the glass from his hand.

"I mean loads of us would pay for you to...I don't know what to call it, consult?"

"I'm sure you have staff suitable for this kind of work, you just needed help organising it into a coherent story." Coherent for any donkey, he thought but wouldn't say it aloud.

"Don't be so humble, it doesn't suit you. There would be money in it, loads."

Mycroft cleared his throat, rearranging in his seat.

"Ah, I keep forgetting it's a topic not to be addressed with your people isn't it?" Mycroft scanned him for any signs of mockery but couldn't detect any, he just seemed completely out of control of his mouth. Nathan misinterpreted his looks and tried to specify.

"With you people, I mean old money. Couldn't hurt to earn some more, would it?"

"I don't work for money."

"You sure did when you charged me for your homework back in the old days." Nathan giggled.

"It was a matter of establishing the value of the product. You will find that is no longer neccessary."

"Well, just thought it would mean a lot of influence, you'd be the most influential man in this building. Because everybody struggles to keep on top of matters and you just do it single handedly."

"Thank you. I'll think about it." he got up and reached for Nathan's hand. "This advice is for free: cut back on the drinking. Looks unprofessional."

Nathan blushed, putting down the glass and hurrying to hold the door for him. Mycroft nodded at him and vanished down the hallway without another word.

 

He leaned on a fence near the place they used to take off. His colleague had asked him to accompany her there after a business lunch and so he watched her soaring over the field noiselessly in her glider. The sun was warm on his face as he followed the white spot in the sky that went with the wind. Like a bird, he thought as the glider circled over the woods nearby.Tiredness crept over him, slowly, it felt like the hand of a old friend on his shoulder. The wind from the woods was fresh and tasted of earth.

"Would you like to try?" she waved at him and he nodded in agreement, surprised by it himself. 

 

It was the feeling of floating over the green fields, the incredible calmness that had overwhelmed him spotting a flock of greylag goose underneath that he remembered instantly when he woke in strange surroundings. His vision was blurred, people moved around him, someone leaned over and tried to talk to him. He couldn't hear him and so he closed his eyes again hoping to return to the plane, the warmth of the sun on his face.

The second time he woke he was alone in a dark room with a beeping sound very close by. This time his brain sprung into gear and he tried to sit up to reach for the bell. He had no idea why he was here and someone would have to explain. Shadows of memory floated up in him but he couldn't grasp them, bits of pieces of conversation. There had been a heated conversation, he had stumbled down the stairs at the restaurant, too much wine. He remembered getting into the small glider but not landing. There was no energy left in his limbs, he sacked back into the hospital bed. A nurse rested a hand on his arm, he tried to focus his eyes on her face but she was blurring the more he tried.

"Don't worry, Tristam, this will stop sometime soon. We're working on stabilising you." Her voice was with him as he slithered back into sleep.

The third time he woke he recognized the voice and the corona of black hair.

"What is going on here?" he felt nausea rising as the room began spinning around him once more. 

"They tell me you have been drugged."

"Who is they?" 

"Your supervisor or whatever you call her and that colleague who was with you." Greg moved a chair, he could hear. "They don't know yet what exactly it is."

"How long?"

"Third day now." Greg's hand rested on his blanket, he wanted to take it but was without any strength. Even without seeing him, he felt the tension in the older man.

"You shouldn't have come. Hate when you worry."

Greg let out a strange laugh. "Yes, I noticed. You tell me close to nothing that is going on in your life, don't you? It took that woman to tell me you were late the other night because you had your cover blown. And I got all mad at you."

"I was late and why would you care why?"

"Are you fucking..." he knew Greg was ruffling his hair. "I know this isn't the time to have this conversation but you are fucking impossible. Why do you keep me so out of everything? I work...I'm police, for Christ's what do think, you think I can't keep something to myself?"

Myc wouldn't answer, there was little to say that wouldn't intensify the conflict. He struggled to sit up and open his eyes. If he had to face an ending he would do it open-eyed and upright. The man was leaning at the wall close to his bed, watching his futile attempts. 

"You can't even ask for help when it's obvious, don't you?" Greg sighed, taking hold of his armpits to move him up on the pillow. Mycroft sighed, burying his fingers in the other's arm.

"Your fucking pride is going to kill you one day." Greg whispered, resting his head on Mycroft's chest. Finally he took Mycroft's left hand and placed it in his own hair. 

"I might have told that woman something I oughn't. But I was worried out of my mind and she asked if I had noticed anything."

"Q. Her name is Q."

"Ah. And what is your name then, stranger?"

Mycroft huffed but it turned into a strangled cough. "Fucking idiot is what you call me most lately." He ran his fingers through the scruffy hair under his fingers. No product in it, he had been in a hurry getting here.

"You won't tell me, will you?" Greg's voice vibrated in his ribcage.

"Most spouses of the people who work there know considerably less than you do. What did you tell her?"

"Who? Ouh, her. They asked if you had been feeling ill lately and I told them about the sickness."

"Ah. Well, I guess she suspected anyway. She's a tricky one to fool."

"I'm not, apparently. It's only now that I made the connection. Felt like a fool and she sure looked at me like I was."

"I'm sorry. It's nothing I like talking about." Greg's head moved up towards his shoulder. He could feel something wet through the fabric of the hospital gown and prayed fervently it was sweat.

"Just ask." Mycroft whispered, fisting into the hair.

"Myc, tell me something nobody else knows about you."

"I'm in love with Gregory Lestrade and I can't believe he is here."

"You are a fucking idiot."

"I know."

 

Their mother insisted on taking the children. Sherlock knew Mycroft would hate nothing more than being seen by them in a state of weakness but there was no arguing with her.

"I can't believe it took them four days to tell me where you are. You could have been dead by now."

"But I am not, so stop making such a fuss."

She took a deep breath as if to start another round of complaining but the pale face of her older son against the pillow seemed to stop her.

"I'd expect this type of behaviour from Sherlock but you, I thought you were more...responsible."

Sherlock caught his brother's eyes and sighed deeply. With Lissi clinging to his hand he felt a rare fit of compassion for the other one.

"Mummey, how do you get the idea he took anything? He told you it's some kind of nasty stomach flu."

"No one is unconscious for days from stomach flu." Her hands were firmly pressed into her sides.

"Don't argue! He is ill." Lissi broke loose from his grip, making for Mycroft's bed. Mycroft first tried to stop her from crawling onto it but soon gave in, drawing her close enough to curl an arm around the tiny person. He pressed a kiss onto her head. "Would you do me favour and get me the papers from the shop in the lobby?" She nodded and Mycroft reached for the drawer in his hospital desk looking for coins. "Leo, you'll find the lift, won't you?"

They watched them vanish down the hallway.

"They were worried too, you know." their mother hissed at him. "You've got responsibility, you can't just get drugged like that."

"I'm sorry you worried. Won't happen again." He kept up her stare until she let out a breath and snatched up her purse, following the children.

"Stomach flu? Really?" 

"It's what I used to tell her when you were... indisposed." Mycroft snapped.

"Any ideas?"

"A few. Q is having someone look into it."

"She really is upset because you obviously haven't put her down as your emergency contact." Sherlock leaned onto the bed, studying his brother's battered face.

"Why are you here, anyway?"

"She forced me. I sure had better things waiting for me at the morgue." Sherlock pouted.

"Feel free to leave, I sure don't mind." Mycroft carefully lowered himself back into the pillow.

"Fine."

"Fine." Sherlock stood in the room for another moment before getting into the chair next to the bed, watching his brother doze off.


	55. Wiped Memory

"Is he any better?" Molly stood in the door once again, waiting for him. He dropped a bag full of human bones next to her shoes before stepping out of his own without kneeling down to open them.

"My brother is indestructible. If ever he decides to die it will be a consciously planned thing and surely more dramatic than a hospital bed."

"You really believe that?" Molly laughed, watching him fold the blue scarf with care.

"Of course." He placed it into the pocket of his coat before hanging it on her rack." You said I was supposed to eat. Where is it then?"

 

"I was told you take clients. So why would you turn me down?" Sherlock held the door of the morgue wide open but Gavin refused to take the hint.

"Don't tell me you haven't started working on it anyway. Of course I'd be willing to pay the usual rate." He picked up a glass full of pink liquid, carefully shaking it.

"I said no. I do take clients but I choose them and I have now repeatedly told you, no."

"Why? You are working on it anyway!" Gavin hissed, getting really close to Sherlock. "Don't you feel some kind of obligation towards him? After all, it's you who started this entire mess."

"Now, I'm intrigued. How could I have started all that mess?" 

"Your brother turns up in his studio and two days later they find him beaten to death, I'm no detective but it seems logical to me!" Sherlock felt little drops of spit hitting his face and tried hard not to draw a face.

"Oh, is that news to you, Mr. detective? I'd say your objectivity is slightly flawed this time, isn't it? So either you get working on this properly or my lawyers will ask for the evidence to be handed over to proper detectives. I want to see the brute punished who did this to him."

"Get! Out! You're fantazising. Why should my brother waste his time on someone like Victor?"

"Well, ask him!" Gavin sputtered from down the hallway, turning back once more. Sherlock slammed the door with full force before his knees gave in. He wasn't sure any more whom the rage was directed at.

"Was that your new client? Are you looking for something or why are you on the floor?" Molly stumbled in, a box of new chemicals under her arm. He glared at her and she awkwardly made her way around him.

"Is he a client?"

"No."

"Why...?"

"No." he yelled interrupting her flow of questions. She blinked twice before carefully putting down the box in his workspace.

"Greg is upstairs, wants to talk to you." she stuttered, hurrying to get away.

 

"Trouble?" Greg offered him a cup of coffee, taking back some files Sherlock had commented on, but Sherlock declined with a forceful gesture.

"Nothing."

"You look stressed."

"Well, Molly's nonexistent intellect is getting on my nerves. Her presence is sucking any possibility of a coherent thought out of the room!" Sherlock got out of the chair, throwing his hands over his head.

"Other than you she actually works here, so I hope you aren't asking me to kick her out of the morgue."Greg huffed, lighting a cigarette.

"Other than her I actually solve some of your cases." Sherlock yelled, snatching the cigarette from his mouth. "Where have you been yesterday, I looked for you, you were neither here nor at home."

"I...paid someone a visit."

"Do you ever think of something else? Must be tiresome to be so...human." Sherlock shuddered and Greg smirked at the overacted disgust in the younger Holmes' face."I'm going to be out for a few days, undercover." the young man added.

"Alright. Anything I can help with?" Greg reached for another cigarette. Sherlock had his eyes closed and inhaled deeply.

"No. Just not strictly legal. I'd appreciate it if you could bail me out if one of your colleagues gets hold of me. I'd ask Myc but he is...indisposed."

"Is he?" Greg blushed.

 Sherlock studied his face with awkward intensity. "You sure behave odd today."

"I...meeting." Greg reached for his jacket before Sherlock could start any deductions and made for the door.

 

He had to wait in the hallway when he returned to the hospital in the evening. He was informed Mr Holmes was holding a meeting in his room. He could see the outline of several people in dark suits through the milky glass near the door. Like a pleader, waiting to be heard he thought, the sting of envy went deep. Q was leading the little paprade when it left his room, she nodded at him, the rest didn't seem to notice him. He watched them vanish down the hallway, the nurses pressed into the walls to make way for the strange assembly as they passed them. Mycroft sat on his bed, surrounded by an array of files, typing away on a laptop on his knees.

"Am I intruding?" he couldn't hide the anger completely.

"If you came to fight, yes." Mycroft kept typing before slamming the computer shut and picking up a pen to sign several documents. Greg groaned in response.

"I'm sorry, I just...they came with disturbing news."

"Oh?"

 Mycroft leaned over and cleaned a spot on his bed for Greg to sit down. 

"I...apparently someone tried to wipe my memory and as it seems they suceeded. I'm missing a good part of a conversation I was having the other day."

"And someone...has a name?"

"Yes, he does. But without my memory I have absolutely no evidence in hand and that...man is currently running wild in Parliament, bribing and threatening people."

"I don't know what to say."

"There is nothing to be said. I will have myself discharged tomorrow morning and try to get a hold of him before more serious things happen."

"More serious than memory loss?"

Mycroft rubbed his face with both hands, sighing deeply. "I appreciate the worry but it isn't neccessary."

 

At the end of a very long night, Sherlock dropped on a bench before Westminster Abbey, looking onto Parliament. The exhaustion that filled him was less of the physical kind. Impersonating being someone else for more than two days tired him and thene there was the case itself. As long as he kept sympathy out of the equation, no homicide no atrocity had been able to make him feel this way. This time feelings lurked in every turn he took. Victor had not only been a victim, he sat there right in the middle, and Sherlock could feel how the net must have begun to tighten around him with every move he made. He had probably met the young secretary like he had met everybody he knew, simply by standing somewhere. Victor had been a magnet that attracted people. Their liason ended and Victor hadn't been the one who made the decision. He hated being left behind. So he thought of revenge, the blackmailing started. So far, so simple. But why didn't he stop at this? Why add a second and third victim to the equation?

"Any money?"

"No, I don't think he was ever short of money, his mum would have made sure of that." Sherlock waved a dismissive hand in the direction the voice had come from.

"Is that a no?" It was now that he finally made notice of the down-and-out standing in front of him.

"That is my bench." The man moved Sherlock's bag and sat down.

"I'm sorry." Sherlock moved to the other end, the smell stenched in his nose.

"You don't look like someone normally sleeping outside. Trouble at home?"

Memories flashed through Sherlock as if someone had opened the flood gates. Nights in a public toilet, the digust he had felt eating from a dustbin for the first time. He fumbled for his wallet inside his coat.

"You're here often then?" he asked, counting out some bank notes.

"T'is my base here. What are you doing here?"

Sherlock smiled. "Trying to solve a puzzle."

"Ouh? What's the puzzle?"

"Why would you blackmail someone if it wasn't for money?"

"Ha! Revenge? Sadism?"

"No, he was a lot but not a sadist."

"Power. People do a lot to control others."

"He had other...better ways of doing that. He would have had to be desperate to use such measures." The man offered him a bottle which he declined politely, fishing in his pocket for a cigarette instead. Desperate...out of control...power. It was like lighting struck him. Victor didn't volunteer for this, he had been forced into it. But by whom?

"Thank you, you've been of great help." he leapt up as if something had stung him, throwing the packet of cigarettes at the man.

"Any time, young man."

 

"Visiting time is well over I should think." Mycroft groaned, turning towards his brother's figure in the door. 

"You haven't been sleeping anyway." Sherlock opened his coat and slouched into the chair at his brother's bed. "Victor blackmailed at least three people."

"And that took you three weeks? You never cease to disappoint me." Mycroft leaned onto his elbow, watching his brother's eyes move in the twilight.

"I think he has been forced to do so by someone else." Sherlock stapled his hands under his chin. "Gavin tells me you have been to see Victor shortly before he died."

"And because it would be the easiest solution you assume it must be me, your evil counterpart that uses innocent Victor to gain control over what? Secretaries in Westminster? Some backbencher? Come on, give me a break!"

"Why would you go and see Victor?" Sherlock leaned close enough to feel his brother's breath on his face.

"A moment of untimed sentiment. I went to warn him his doings wouldn't go unpunished. He didn't take my advice."

Sherlock's breath began to stutter, and Mycroft dropped himself back into the cushion, waiting for the blow.

"You knew about this and you knew what was going to happen and you did...nothing?"

"I offered help, he gave it a miss. I'm not everybody's nanny, Sherlock!"

"He was murdered, Mycroft, you watched him being murdered! It would have taken you a phone call to get someone there to save him!"

"There were more important things at stake! It was a price that had to be paid! Someone is collecting discrediting information about everyone of importance in this town and my mind is wiped. Victor really wasn't top of my priority list, brother mine. Not after all he had you going through."

The chair flew back against the wall as Sherlock bounced up and out the door. Mycroft sighed and took a good look at the fleeing figure, quite sure it would be the last time for a while he would see him face to face.


	56. Checkmate

They stood behind him as he signed the papers for his discharge. Q and Greg and the doctor all shared an uneasy look but he decidedly ignored them, reaching for his jacket. She held the door of the car open, first to Greg, then to him before getting into the driver's seat. He tried to catch Greg's eyes but he seemed busy inspecting the new navigation system.

"It has voice recognition. See." she pressed some of the buttons and Greg leaned forward trying to get a closer look. "You just tell it the postcode, basically. Myc, darling, what's your postcode again?"

His mind worked at lightning speed or so he thought, but he couldn't find it. It was all a grey mash of information and strange feelings up there.

"Myc, did you hear her?" He looked at Greg with confusion, feeling threatened by the interrogation. But how were you to excuse that you needed time to think about your address.

"Myc?" Q turned to face him as well and he couldn't help himself but free a roaring scream and punch her seat in front of him. There was a moment of complete silence as his forehead came ot rest on the cold leather of the front seat. Then Greg sighed and opened his safety belt for him. Q sighed and went to get his bag from the boot. Mycroft pushed down a sob and slowly made his way back into the ward.

 

Like an old couple they sat on the bench together, watching ducks on the pond in the hospital garden. Mycroft had taken Gregs hand and buried them joint together in the bulged out pocket of his dressing gown. Opposite an old man was training to walk again after an operation under the suspicious glance of his wife.

"I'll be back tomorrow. Promise. As soon as..."

"Don't make a fuss about it. If you're busy it's fine."

"Anything you'd like me to bring?"

"My dignity." Mycroft muttered, releasing Greg's hand with something like regret.

"You're a drama queen." the older man sighed, leaning his arms on his knees. "They assured her it's only temporal."

"Excuse me, but I do find it unsettling not to remember my own address and missing memories of an entire afternoon. I can find nothing overly dramatic about my behaviour." Mycroft jumped at how hoarse his own voice sounded.

"It'll sort itself out."

"They don't even know what it was I was given. How can they know it will sort itself out?" he sneered, trying to keep much more unsettling reactions at bay. "I'm sorry. I know I'm no fun to be around lately."

Greg nodded, running a hand along his back, stopping somewhere in the middle as if losing the courage.

"That nurse had the nerve to suggest I should take part in their yoga class. To reduce stress. They think it would help with... the other issue as well. Can you imagine that? Me, doing the tree with my eyes closed?" They both laughed quietly at the thought and Mycroft used the opportunity to wipe the corner of his eye with the sleeve of his gown. Greg watched the ducks and pretended not to notice and Mycroft was grateful for the gesture.

"You want me to tell Sherlock you're still here?"

"No. He doesn't care. Keep an eye on him, he's been a little out of sorts lately."

"See you tomorrow then." Greg pressed down on the man's shoulder, Mycroft avoiding his eyes.

"See you tomorrow." he muttered, drawing the gown closer around himself.

 

"How did you evade those gymnastics then?" Mycroft looks up from his read with something like hesitation just to become aware of an elderly man trying to occupy the seat next to him. His drip gets in his way all the time. Office job, senior executive, happily married - or so he thinks - fresh heart attack.

"Pardon?"

"The yoga." the man nods in the direction of the gym room where everybody else with stress related issues is held hostage at the moment.

"Oh. Constant nagging and a well placed threat from my lawyer." It earns him a loud laugh and a wrinkled hand on his arm.

"I'm not allowed, yet. Too fresh the thing. It's a curse to grow old, let me tell you." Mycroft neatly folds the paper, feeling too weak to shush the man away. So he waits and watches.

"Though one mustn't complain. Met some of the poor wretches from the NHS ward in the park the other day. Fresh from Afghanistan. Awful stuff." he shudders. "You're not much of a talker, are you?"

"Excuse my manners, it's...my head" Mycroft knocks his own skull with the knuckle of a fingers, attempting a shy smile at the man. "George, by the way."

"Uh, my second son is called George. Must be around your age, too. Do you play chess by any chance?"

 

The nurses soon realized it was a bad idea to interrupt their games. At some point they had stopped trying to convince them back to their rooms for meals and began dropping pills and trays at their seats by the window instead. He allowed the games to be paused for Greg's visits and Samuel's bad habit of sleeping but otherwise the days now melted into the regular back and forth of the game. His postcode came back to him after losing his knight in the most foolish of ways, the name Magnussen as he checkmated his opponent for the fourth time in a row. Every useful piece of information whirled up a cloud of dust of other things, information and memories forgotten on purpose but refusing to be deleted. He now kept a notepad in the pocket of his gown, noting down the odd shards of light that went through his abused brain.

"Getting better, isn't it?" Samuel smirked an nodded towards his notes. "I'd hate you to leave before me, though."

"Not before the end of the game, anyhow." Mycroft pointed a stern finger at the board where it was Samuel's turn to move his ebony pawns.

"Who taught you to be such a merciless player? Your father?"

Mycroft frowned, wondering if the question was an attempt to distract his attention from the move slowly being built on the board between them. He realized the tactics and calculated his way out before answering.

"No. Don't have one. I taught myself."

"My sons never were interested. One of them is a rugby player, the other is into cars. Small-minded, both of them. But I guess you got no one else to blame than yourself as a parent. You'll see when that boy of yours is old enough to make accusations and you will find each one of them to be true though you tried your best."

"Checkmate." Mycroft cleared his throat, collecting his pieces with one hand, beginning to set them up once more with the other.

 

The scrumbled egg on his tray slowly grew cold and so did the tea. Mycroft checked his watch twice before getting up to find Samuel's room. The door stood open, a nurse was moving laundry out of it onto a cart in front. The bed was stripped already.

"I'm very sorry Mr Holmes." she stopped in her work to give him a compassionate glance. "It was quick." 

Mycroft nodded, burying both hands in his gown. "I'm being discharged tomorrow anyway." he muttered, sounding very much like his brother, he found, to his own confusion. 

"I'll bring the papers round for you to sign this afternoon." she called after him as he scuttled of, trying not to lose one of his slippers.


	57. Revelations

His first thought was that Mycroft had his account frozen again, the usual punishment for unruly behaviour. But the clerk assured him it was not. That simply the usual payment hadn't arrived this month. Sherlock stared at him for a long moment suddenly realizing he had never questioned where it actually came from but even he figured that would be a very odd thing to admit to a bank clerk. It had just always been there and now it wasn't. Instead he asked him to transfer some from the savings account. The clerk nodded understandingly and handed him a leaflet on the company's overdraft policy.

Standing in the street he pondered his options for dinner for a moment and decided to go for Mrs Hudson. Molly would just have asked questions again and he felt unfit for interrogation.

He searched his phone for her new address, she had bought a house in central London to launder her inheritance. Counting the money in his wallet, he told the taxi driver to take him to Baker Street.

 

There was nothing he needed less than a visit from his father on his first day back on the job. Anthea announced him with careful anticipation and Mycroft sighed, asking for more tea. He looked lost in these surroundings, giving the interior a thorough once over glance. Mycroft got up and offered him the armchair near the couch in the corner like he did with most visitors that found their way into here. His father loosened his tie just a notch, wating for Anthea to pour the tea and to disappear again.

"You...feel any better? Your mother said you had a work related accident?"

"Of sorts."

"What did you do? Drop a file on your toe?"

"Something like that. How can I help you?"

"You know quite well why I'm here."

"I...do have issues remembering things lately but I'm quite sure this is a piece of information completely novel to me so please be so kind as to enlighten me." The sarcasm seeped through the cracks of their politeness though he tried hard to keep it under control. It made him think of cats in the street pacing around each other mauling until one of them lost its temper and jumped into direct attack. He had a feeling it wouldn't be him.

Bernhard let out a sharp breath. "You could have at least spare your mother the humiliation of her card not being accepted at John Lewis and told her directly. This...feud is between me and you, keep her out of it."

"I don't think I follow." His voice pitched up, a sentence he had used way too oftenin the last days.

"The accounts are blocked! I'm not able to withdraw a single penny! Now, I don't know how you get the idea you have any right..."

"Keep it down, will you?" he yelled back at his father who glared at him but instantly fell into silence. Mycroft breathed it in, running a quick evaluation of the man's mental state. He looked for his jacket before steering his father past Anthea and onto the street.

 

When he entered the dated kitchen that had come with the flat, the seat at the table he had hoped to have his dinner served on was already taken by a bulky guy. He hesitated but Mrs Hudson pushed him in, talking like a waterfall. 

"Now this is just the most convenient of coincidences, isn't it?" She hurried to find another chair between the boxes leaving the two men staring at each other.

"Angelo, this is Sherlock. Sherlock, I told Angelo all about you and he has a little problem you might be able to help him with."

"How little?" He kept his look on the other guest but addressed Mrs Hudson in the off, who was shifting another box in what one day would be her sitting room.

"He is suspect in a murder."

"Ah. Little indeed." He took the chair from her hands and raised an eyebrow at Angelo.

"She told me you take clients?" for all his appearances the man looked insecure.

"If you don't bore me." Sherlock leaned back, folding his hands on his chest. Mrs Hudson smiled, drawing a tray of cake from the oven.

 

"Why didn't you tell me the two of you broke up? And why in the first place? It was more than just embarrassing." 

"Mum, I wasn't aware you would call her for her birthday, okay? You met once. For three minutes."

"She said you are with someone new?"

"Mum, I've got a shift starting..."

"Don't you dare, young man. Is it true? Who is she?"

"It's nothing that official."

"I'm not asking you to give a press conference about it, I'm your mother. Is it really asking too much I should like to be included into your life just a notch? I see your sister twice a week but you?"

"Beause she is living next door."

"Well, it was you who needed to run off to the city!"

Greg sighed, aknowledging defeat. Any further comment of resistance had the potential to open the box of Pandora at this stage.

"Let me see what I can do, maybe I could arrange for you to meet him at the weekend."

There was a moment of rare silence in the line. He counted the seconds against the speeding beat of his heart.

"Him?" her voice was softer than he had expected.

"Him."

"It's not that homeless junky you have sleeping on your couch from time to time?"

"Sherlock? No. God, no."

"Good."

"It's his older brother."

"Oh good Lord."


	58. A Knight in the Bathtub

"Remind me, why am I asked to attend your colleagues birthday?" 

"Because she is not only my colleague but a friend and because you promised to accompany me if I sat through another hour of fat women singing in a language I don't understand, acting a story you already know on that....deconstructivist, postmodern stage."

He had shut up after that and carefully gotten dressed. The colleague in question wouldn't disclose how old she actually had turned but she was beyond eighteen without any doubt. So why had he felt like the only adult at a children's party?

He replayed the entire disaster again and again to analyse the exact breaking point. Professional habit. He had stopped Greg only yards away from the door in question.

"Does anybody in there know?"

"No. You asked me not to." There was more than one accusation hidden in that simple phrase. He had asked him not to. Because he knew what it meant to do otherwise. Days and weeks of awkwardness. Sometimes keeping people in the uncertainty of their own assumptions was the biggest gift you could give them and so he hadn't explain himself but followed the man he supposedly loved into battle.

"Myc? You alright?" Greg's sleepfilled voice made it just about through the door of the bathroom. 

Mycroft let his head glide down further the cold metal of the tub. "Yes. Taking a bath, that's all." 

From now time was ticking away. If he took too long now, Greg would start looking for clues that he had revived other bad habits other than the unmentionable. Patches of dry, blistered skin on his hands, red patches. He didn't and wouldn't. After all, there was no water in the tub. He had gotten in fully clothed. He hated shedding his suit lately. Unwise to take off your armour in times of war. The nightsky in the headlight above was of that magnetic violet only the lights of big cities produced. He stared into it and waited for it to fill his mind. The black dog was coming, it had been waiting for him, patiently, he had watched it watch him from the corner of his eyes. It waited for the moment he would slow down and gently put its head on his chest. Burden it so much, it would be impossible to breathe. He often wondered if there were other people who saw life as he did. A collection of absurd and painful episodes, a farce with only one player not having read the script. Or maybe it was just his life that was more absurd than that of any other. Or maybe the others simply were less sensible. He thought of the way blood pooled under Greg's skin when he sank his teeth into it in moments when rage and passion became inseperable. He was more thick-skinned than himself in many ways.

"You know, normal people put water in the tub when taking a bath." Greg's face was cutting off his connection to the nothingness above.

"My house, my rules." Greg smiled at that and Mycroft didn't understand why. The man slowly lowered himself into the empty tub as well, resting his head on the chest of the fully clothed knight, taking a bath. The dark knight, not the one in shining armour. The one that had watched his brother's only love being murdered. The one that would feel no regret when selling the family mansion.

"Tell me what's on your mind." Greg shifted to get a glimpse of his eyes.

"I didn't know we were talking." there was genuine surprise in Mycroft's voice.

"Do we ever?"

"I'm just not the talking type."

 

He asked his father to come to his office once more. The man looked so much older in the pale light of the purpose bound surroundings. As they stared at each other across his desk, he wondered what his father's office might look like. He had never been there. Never had been invited. Never had asked. Rowan obviously had been.

"It's all pretty hard to litigate since you gave him power of attorney. I mean this is your signature, isn't it?"

His father nodded, not even giving the paper a second glance.

"I never thought he would use it... I mean this is..."

They stared at the files, each coming to terms with the idea that the world had turned more than once today.

"I suggest we send mummey to stay with her brother until this is settled, till I find you something...smaller. She can take the children with her."

"There is no way we can retain it?"

"Not at the moment. If I find him..." Mycroft cleared his throat. "Once I find him."

Bernhard nodded before a frown ghosted over his forehead. "What exactly would that imply? I mean, you wouldn't...would you?"

Mycroft studied his face, suddenly realizing no one in their family ever finished sentences. Not the difficult ones, anyway. They were a sharade of missing words. And he played along, answering with meaningful silence.

"You have a picture of him?" The stranger that was his father began searching his pockets. "Sherlock doesn't know about any of this yet. I'd prefer to keep it that way until I know the exact proportions of the catastrophe. Best not to unsettle him." Mycroft, added as Bernhard produced his wallet and extricated a small photograph from the foiled part. Sherlock's faded childhood face appeared underneath. He took it and weighed it in his hand for a while. Another head of curls staring at him. Another grave mistake waiting to be made. He carefully placed it next to his mousepad, nodding at his father's face.

"I'll take those steps neccessary." he said and it seemed to calm him. "I'll pay the price to be paid." he thought but wouldn't speak. As the door closed on his father, he produced a new folder from one of the drawers. He glued the picture to the front, pressing it down with his fist.

"Would you tell Q I need to talk to her, please?"  
"What would you like me to give as reason?" Anthea answered back over the speaker.  
"Family matters."  
"Certainly,Sir."


	59. The Art of Cooking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for a friend and her soon-to-be because they proofread my other stuff until very early this morning and because Friday night's conversation of kitchen refurbishment gave me the idea for this. Sort of...

"I need to use your TV." Sherlock changed the channel. Molly thought about protesting for a moment but decided it wasn't worth the effort. The detective had slumped on the floor in front of her couch, still in his coat, the scarf loosely around his neck.

"Who wants to be a Chef? That's a cooking competition."

"Well spotted Molly. And special praise for stating the obvious once more. Now shush." He waved an impatient gesture at her, turning up the volume. The host was about to introduce the participants.

"That guy over there is the champion. He has won the last two rounds and needs to compete against two more contenders to go through to the nationwide final." Sherlock explained, crawling closer to the screen. His head was now blocking about half of it from where she was sitting.

"Cooking? You don't cook. You don't even eat."

"I do have a considerable theoretical knowledge of cooking. After all, I studied chemistry at Cambridge." he quipped in response.

"Where is the murdery bit in this?"

He turned around with a warm smile she had never seen on him before. Had she been standing, her knees would have given in.

"Don't you know me well, Molly Hooper. You might be only half as thick as I usually think you are. I have a client, Angelo, who took part in the show with that guy there and another contender. He is now charged with murder because contender three died after defeating him. Can't be true, Angelo was taking part in a robbery and thus wasn't in the kitchen of his restaurant that night. The imbeciles at Met claim he poisoned the guy by inviting him to his restaurant."

"And you believe..."

"I think he was poisoned long before he entered Angelo's but it was exquisitly planned so that the poison would operate just as he finished his meal there. Hence, those simpletons would not bother looking further, blaming the whole thing on Angelo."

"But if that was the case, forensics..." she was interrupted with full force.

"They were done by that sheepish colleague of yours. The small one with the big glasses."

"Bert is good at what he does."

"Compared to you yes, but from a wider perspective...He talks to the corpses sometimes. I saw it."

Molly laughed. "So do you."

"That's different. I deduce. He just...babbles."

"And what is your plan?"

"Well, that's obvious, isn't it? I will take part in the show, win the first round to compete against the champion, he will try to poison me, I'll catch him in the act."

"Completely obvious."

"I know." He rolled his eyes at her.

"Just one minor flaw there, Mr Holmes." she smirked when he turned, his face blank with surprise and confusion. "You can't cook."

He waved his impatient gesture at her again. "Minor detail. Can't be that hard." With that he turned back towards the screen where bananas were about to be flamed.

 

Mrs Hudson was a patient character and even more so with regard to Sherlock. She kept her peace until flames were blazing from her stove, threatening to catch on to her new curtains. Now she was screeching at the top of her voice. Angelo was quick to react, pushing Sherlock aside and throwing the frying pan into the sink, suffocating the flames with several kitchen towels.

"There is clearly something wrong with your recipe, Mrs Hudson. I'm quite sure this isn't supposed to happen."Sherlock complained, taking another look at the cookery book on the table. 

"This is hopeless. I've seen many untalented apprentices going through my kitchen but this is...hopeless." Angelo wiped the sweat from his forehead with the remains of the kitchen towel, leaving a black trail of soot on his cheeks. "We will have to send someone else, someone who at least, I don't know, knows how to boil an egg...or water. You will have to go as his or her assistant. If you can learn how to peel an onion without cutting your hand off until then." he dropped into one of the chairs.

"It told you the knife was bent." Sherlock mauled, looking at the bandaid on his thumb.

Angelo's eyes wandered towards Mrs Hudson but she had a very stern look on her face. "I've just been in court for this whole business of my husband's. I will not get myself involved in anything murdery for quite a while, thank you very much. I'll bake the piece for your application but that's that." She dropped into the remaining chair, holding her head with both hands. 

"I wonder what Greg is doing next week." Sherlock grinned, whipping his mobile from his pocket.

 

"You wouldn't believe it! Your brother..." Greg was fighting with the sleeve of his jacket, excitement and anger turning him too clumsy to get out the ususal way. The assaulting garment flew onto Mycroft's couch in one big curve. Mycroft, facing away from him, slowly closed the list of possible tenants the estate agent had sent him and placed it between other paperwork on the coffeetable. Apparently not a good night to share the burden of his mind.

"Your brother has entered me for a cooking competition on nationwide TV. And no, I haven't agreed to this and no, he couldn't be arsed to tell me he had done so himself.The production company called me and congratulated me on the meringue pie I sent in."

"And did you accept?" Mycroft looked into the exasperated face in the armchair across. He smirked when he realized Greg only now noticed he could have just said no. He never did to Sherlock. A flicker of warmth went through his stomach.

"It's for a case. He told me when I went round his flat."

"Don't let him walk all over you, he's like a bloodhound when it comes to that, he can smell your fear."

"He even handed in my leave..." Greg whined, his head lolling from side to side with embarrassment.

"Do you know how to cook?"

"I can do three dishes I think, that's it."

"Enough to get through a courtship period with any woman." Mycroft stated dryly and Greg flushed, he had meant to conceal the motivation he normally had to cook them. "But isn't that enough? I mean how many rounds does my brother need you to stay on the program?"

"I have to get into the final. And it's not like you can cook whatever you like, the recipes are drawn on the show."

"I liked what you cooked for me."

"So much you ended up driving the porcellaine bus." Greg snorted, but regretted it immediatly when Mycroft's face shut down. "Sorry, I...you know I don't mean it."

Mycroft nodded, but it was obvious his mind had already moved on somewhere else.

"Where are the kids, anyway?" he only now noticed the absence of noise from upstairs.

"My mother took them with her to the countryside for a couple of days."

"Is everything alright?"

"Yes, splendid. I needed some time to myself anyway and they were a bit out of sorts after all that hospital business." he was slightly disappointed when Greg bought the lie so easily. Q hadn't when he had called on her on his way back. She had picked up the phone without another word and instructed the legal department to sort the paperworks in the matter. He shuddered at the thought that probably the file for the persecution of Rowan and that for the custodianship were sitting side by side on the desk of some lawyer. He hoped he would never have to meet him.

"I know a fair bit on how to cook." Mycroft cleared his throat picking up the conversation once more.

"You're looking at schools for Leo?" Apparently he had been gone longer than he had thought. Greg had picked up some of the brochures on the table.

"Yes, it's about time to get some structure into his education. That tutor is all fine and well but he is alone too much. Some age appropiate company wouldn't go amiss, I guess."

"He'd only be here in the holidays?" Mycroft swallowed hard on the frown in Greg's face.

"I'm looking for somewhere more close by so he can come back every other weekend."

"I never understood why people would send their children to live somewhere else."

"The only other boy I was ever responsible for, was Sherlock. And look what that has turned him into." he hissed, snatching the papers from Greg's hand.

"You were a child yourself, Myc! It wasn't fair. And you can hardly blame yourself for the way he is!" Greg called after him as Mycroft was once more evading towards the kitchen. "But you do. You fucking do." he added to himself, as it dawned on him.


	60. Specks of Dust in Time

In the end it came down to three cardboard boxes. Books, pictures, the odd item of memorabilia. Only the gardens were the same. He gave them a final look through the French window of what had been the dining room. The trees were oblivious of the changes going on inside. The air was heavy with lavender and beehumming, calling for him to roll out a chair and sit by the pond, watching the fireflies. With the furniture gone much of the memories were gone, slowly seeping through the cracks in the old wooden floor. Specks of dust danced in the rays of light, looking for a new place to settle, uprooted just as much as he was now, hardly more than a speck of dust himself floating in the depths of time.

He could hear his father return from his final round upstairs. He closed the flaps on the box labelled Sherlock, carried it towards the door where his own was waiting. As he waited for his father to discuss final details with the new tenants, he realized that from now on there would always be a back then and after. 

"You're going into town?" His father took his box from his hands and loaded it into the trunk of his car. Mycroft fitted the other two in his.

"No, going to see mummey." They parted and Mycroft waited for the car to disappear, sitting behind the wheel. He reached for his mobile, pressing speeddial for Greg's number. The line was busy. He wanted to leave a message but couldn't think of anything to say, muttered something about keeping him updated on the cooking contest, then turned the car, not looking back.

 

The surroundings turned more rural, he soon recognized parts of the senery as it lay in the blazing sunshine. With every metre he brought between himself and the house, his lungs filled with air more freely, his mind began roam more easily. His uncleIs house was a red brick farm house at the end of a village. He saw his mother standing in one corner of the garden, inspecting some vegetables. She wore a straw hat and gloves, the knees of her trousers stained by grass. He waved towards her and she greeted back, pointing towards the lawn.

His eyes needed a moment to adjust when he passed through the dark and cool house straight towards the backyard where tea and cake had been laid out on a long table on the lawn.

"Ah, there you are!" his cousin's wife hugged him tightly. "They're outside," she smiled, following his searching eyes.

The garden was lush and green, the high trees were singing in the constant breeze, granting shelter in their shadows from what were the beginnings of summer. He spotted her bright yellow t-shirt by the wall at the very end, she seemed in deep conversation with some rabbits in their stall. For some time he watched her from the distance as she finally plucked up the courage to open one of the little doors and began petting one of the bigger ones. She noticed him as he was halfway across the lawn.

"They are really fluffy! And they only eat vegetables." she declared with a very grave tone to her high voice.

"If you always eat your carrots, maybe you turn fluffy too." he smirked as she gave him a very disbelieving look. He squatted down and carefully placed a spotted one into her lap." She squealed with excitment as it snuggled into her arms. "It likes me."

"Sure does." He fought an instinct to pick her up and hold her very tight. Instead he rubbed something from the corner of her mouth. "Where's your brother?"

"He has a bike. Brian was here this morning and they went to the village but I couldn't go they said because I can't ride a bike and I'm too slow."

"Ah. And who is Brian?"

"He lives there." She pointed into the distance. "He was Leo's friend but not any more I think."

"Why not?" 

She shrugged, feeding the rabbit a single leaf of dandelion, an offer the animal accepted eagerly. "I don't know, he doesn't talk and says I should leave him alone."

 

He eventually found him in the branches of a plum tree, brooding over another book on birds.

"Leo, I'm back." He flinched at his own clumsy opening.

"I can see that."

"You...how was your day?"

"Good."

"You went to the village?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Just for the protocol: there is nothing wrong?"

The answer took just a split second longer. "Yes."

"So you are meeting Brian again some time soon?"

"No."

Mycroft sighed. He was obviously crap at this. He knew the answer he would get but he asked anyway. "Why?"

"Because."

As he turned to leave, he saw Leo closing his book from the corner of his eye.

"We went to the shop."

"And?"

"They sell newspapers." Leo sighed, carefully shifting to face Mycroft. "I'm not a baby. Is it true? Dad stole that money?"

"Yes he did. I'm sorry."

"And then he was murdered."

"Yes."

"How?"

He thought of the pictures he had seen and how even his brother had reacted slightly distressed. So he exhaled slowly, thinking about an answer.

"I'll find out anyway and I'm no baby!" 

Mycroft nodded, looking up into the tree.

"They burnt him. It's quite common with the mafia." They looked at each other for a while. "This is not for your sister's ears, do you understand?"

"She hardly remembers him. She was with mum most of the time. I know because she asked me what he looked like some days ago."

"And do you remember?"

"Yes. I think s, but the more often I try, the more I forget I think." Leo slowly began to descend, handing the book to Mycroft. "Brian read it too, you know. He said he couldn't be friends with the son of a bastard like that. That he stole the money from poor people and that all I have is stolen too."

"Well, first of all, he couldn't have stolen it from poor people because poor people by definition wouldn't have anything you could steal. Secondly the money that was still there will be given back as soon as courts have made a decision and thirdly I'd advise you not to believe all the crap some farmer boy spits at you. Seems he is not the smartest young man."

Leo rolled his eyes as Mycroft slowly began walking towards the house. There was a silence until the now crowded table by the house came into view. The boy stopped again in his tracks.

"But everybody will always think so. It's not just him. I have his name and everybody will know I'm his son."

"You are his son but that doesn't mean you are responsible for what he did." Mycroft began to walk again but Leo fell back. So he stopped again, studying the face that quickly had bronzed in those few days outside. A memory of the moment Greg had opened that envelope for him not knowing what the content meant to him floated up and filled his brain. He took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly.

"Leo, I'm not your father, but you will always be my son if you want to." Mycroft could see the thought run through the small head until the boy finally nodded and took his hand.

 


	61. Bittersweet

"I have no idea what happened there, seriously, no idea how he does it but he sneaked Mrs Hudson's prepared dishes in, though the whole room was full of cameras. I mean you saw it right? Mycroft?"

Greg leaned over the couch in his living room in front of which the TV was still running. Mycroft was fast asleep with the remote control on his chest, still in his full suit. Greg sighed and ran a hand along his jaw, Mycroft's eyes fluttered open, reading his face. He held the gaze, tried to smile.

"I did see it. I really did. When's the next round recorded?" Mycroft fought to sit up and cleared his throat. Greg grinned, catching Mycroft on the lie. He walked around and moved the man's feet to sit down. "Hard week?"

"Sort of. Sorry that I missed your show."

"You won't miss the next one, I booked you into the audience."

"I'm not sure, Sherlock would like that."

"But I would like it. For how long exactly did you plan on keeping this from him anyway?"

"Greg, we both know how he will react if he finds out that we..."

"That we what? You can't even say it when no one is around." Greg shoved his feet off his lap and got up, slowly getting dressed.

"This is your flat. I should be the one leaving." Mycroft tried hard to lift himself from the couch but his back hurt badly and he pulled a face.

"See, that's another thing!" Greg yelled, throwing his hands into the air in desperation. "You turn up as you please you come back from work in a more than bad state and I'm left to watch you in a coma for days without knowing not a thing about what is going on. Mycroft, for goodness sake, what have you been up to those last days?"

"Why would you want to know?" Mycroft yelled back, he finally had found a way of getting to his feet.

"Because, I care about you and would like to know what is going on in your life!"

"Wrong, Gregory! That isn't the reason. You want to know because it makes you feel involved, because it makes you feel special. That's at the core of relationships. People are narcists and so are you, so am I."

"Oh is that so? Since when does anyone from your rotten family know anything about human relationships? And why would it be such a problem to tell me no matter what my fucking reasons?"

"Because I can't stand it, alright? I hate to talk about it because it makes me feel out of control and I hate it and so you know!" Mycroft felt the nausea rising. Inwardly he cursed that he couldn't just start to cry like normal people instead of vomiting like a drunken teenager. It was maybe the biggest difference between him and his brother. Sherlock was able to cry out of anger and sometimes when he was sad. Mycroft only cried in lonely and most of all calm moments.

"What you think I'm going to do? You think I'd use it against you? You really think me that...disgusting?" Greg was crying. He only noticed now and it paralyzed him. He thought of Victor and the people he had been forced to betray for Magnussen because he had talked just one time too much. Had told some other poor chap under Magnussen's control about his passion for illegal gambling. It had sufficed to wrap him up in a net of threats like a fly in a cobweb forcing him to threat other to buy him just a little more time. Because once in, any move would only mean to get in deeper.

"You don't trust me at all." Greg's arms that had been tense with anger until now, suddenly fell at his side. He could see his heart break as realization hit him.

"My father has managed to ruin the family. They had to leave the house. I helped them move yesterday. Sherlock doesn't know yet, he isn't talking to me because I kind of didn't do enough to save that boy's life. The waste land corpse...it was Sherlock's lover." he had thrown all the cards on the table and waited for his verdict. Maybe it was enough to keep it together one more time. Most likely it wasn't.

"This... all this...stuff has been going on and you tell me nothing? You come here and we talk about football and Sally's birthday and fuck...even the weather and when I ask you how you are doing you say nothing?" Greg's voice was broken, his breathing pattern very irregular. Mycroft located his bag with his eyes and calculated the shortest way for the door.

"It's nothing. I'm sorry if you felt insulted by the insufficient amount of communication it just seemed the more appropiate policy under given circumstances."

"Policy. Right. I'm leaving now." Greg picked up his key that had fallen from his hand, crammed his phone into the pocket of his jacket. Mycroft felt as if the entire air was leaving the room as the door closed behind Greg. He miscalculated and waited a second too long, he only just about made it to the toilet.

 

Donovan's line was busy. At his mother's house no one picked up. He could have called his sister as she probably was there but he knew better than to expect sympathy from that corner. So he decided to hide at his pub. The next thing he rembembered was standing under Clara's window, yelling something about being sorry. The door opened and he stumbled in.

 

Sherlock had spent the nightcollecting evidence in favour of Angelo. When he had it all figured out, he decided it would be a good idea to deliver it directly to Greg so he coul get on with it in the morning. London was a big town and so he did not believe in a coincidence when his brother crossed his way only a few metres from Greg's house. 

"He isn't in." Mycroft stated instead of a greeting.

"Or maybe he doesn't open for you."

"He isn't."

"You got that hay fever again? Your eyes look awful." He tried to see his brother's face in more detail but Mycroft kept it in the halfshadow of the streetlights.

"We've got to talk one of these days, brother mine."

"What if I don't want to talk to you?"

"Fine, then you will only be listening. Tomorrow around noon."

He was about to bark back something about being busy but there was something in his brother's air that made him stop. He was sure Mycroft could see the puzzle pieces fall into place as he studied his features intently. The older one only smiled softly accepting defeat on so many levels with grace.

"Well, keep me updated on how that cooking mayhem is coming along." His older brother rearranged his jacket and slowly began walking away from him. Sherlock thought about what to say but couldn't come up with anything sensible. 

"I always told you he is an idiot!" It was his best shot. He raised his voice to reach his brother who kept walking.

"I know you did, brother mine, but what is one to do?" Mycroft waved at him without turning back and Sherlock watched until the beige of his suit had vanished completely in the halfshades of the nocturnal street.

 

Greg was late the next morning, dragging himself into the office. Sally was waiting by his door, looking at her watch in a meaningful way.

"The freak was here this morning, dropped a bag of and I quote 'self-explanatory evidence.'" He took the plastic bag from her outstretched hand, unlocking his door.

"You smell like you rolled yourself out of the pub this very morning."

"Haven't been home." he snapped at her before slamming the door shut behind himself. Taking a closer look at the bag he found something scribbled on it in Sherlock's erratic hand. "To Gavin Lestrade." he frowned but decided to think nothing of it. The few hours left to him in which he wouldn't have to see either of the Holmes he decided to ban them from his thoughts. With little success.

 

Sherlock collected different kinds of tobacco ash and catalogued them. Mycroft collected emotions and used them privately. There were at least five different types of anger. He hoped to feel at least one of them when watching his brother and Greg on their show on TV. Instead he felt something much more complicated, an amalgate of sadness and despair and close to no anger. Greg looked little shaken by what had happened, the usual, good looking, positive self. Maybe the dark circles under his eyes were a little longer than usual, but else...

He picked up anohter file, clicking his pen. People always had the misconception that emotions really weren't his area but the opposite was true. He had many of them, too many and that was where the problems started. Others seemed to feel, deal with it and move on. He hardly felt like he ever could move on. Things changed, pain became less acute but it never faded completely. and it took him much longer to decipher what it was he felt than others. The subtleties of whether he was sad or angry took a while to be processed, most of the time long after the situation was over. So he tried to avoid getting involved in the first place. Melancholic probably described his default mood best. Life was painful and the few happy moments only made you feel it even more so. Greg wasn't melancholic, Sherlock moved between the extremes on both ends without hardly ever stopping in the middle. A real mixture of his father and mother's constitutions. He, maybe he was more like his mother than he was able to accept.

"Myc, I'm so bored." Lizzi slouched on the couch, imitating Sherlock quite exquisitely. 

"Would you like to play piano with me?" She nodded and jumped towards the instrument and as he placed her hands on the keys, life turned bittersweet once more.


	62. Growing pains

The clock on the mantlepiece struck twelve when his brother's knuckles connected with the door of his appartment. "Show-off" Sherlock mumbled, fighting to get up from his usual place on the couch. Mycroft gave the flat a displeased look all over, and Sherlock felt like back at boarding school upon room inspection.   
"I meant to clean up for you but then I remembered you had my best friend murdered and couldn't be bothered." he gathered the belt of his dressing gown with both hands, tying the knot tighter. Mycroft picked up some pieces of stray clothes dropping them in one pile on the floor to make room for himself in an armchair. Because he knew what untidy did to his brother's mind, he gave the pile a kick. Because it was an obvious provocation, it was ignored.   
"I'm not quitee sure you noticed that your monthly allowance was late this time."  
"I did." he placed his feet on the table, wriggling his toes under Mycroft's unpleased gaze.  
"I hope it didn't cause any inconveniences."  
"My dealer wasn't pleased so I just deserted to selling myself in the street, that got me by tolerably."  
"I'd be inclined to laugh if it wasn't so probable a scenario." Mycroft sneered, folding one leg carefully over the other. There was a silence during which he studied his brother's face.  
"So, you came to apologize you forgot all about me because you were too busy having people murdered?" There was no better way of breaking a meaningful silence than to break a taboo.  
"Sherlock, this is serious, as in adult talk. You think you could pretend acting age appropiate for ten minutes?"  
Sherlock sighed and looked at his watch. "Aaand counting..." he pointed at Mycroft when the pointer passed the twelve. Mycroft duy rolled his eyes in agony.  
"I'm not quite sure you are aware that Rowan worked with father for a while? Well, he did and dad gave him permission to fiddle with the family's accounts resulting in him running off with the entire family savings under his arm. Mummey's as well as dad's own."  
"Oh. Thought it would take him longer to fall victim to dad's blight. And how come Rowan is trusted with these things and I don't even have a credit card for those accounts?" Sherlock huffed, masquing the anger by playing with the belt of his gown.  
"One reason might be that Rowan wasn't anticipated to spend it on illegal substances or human organs from the black market. Again, the topic of age-appropiate is finding its way back into this conversation. Though I'm inclined to admit dad did fall victim to a harsh error of judgment concering his character here."  
"So fraud is the more adult version of wasting the family fortune?"  
"In a way...from dad's point of view..." Mycroft sighed. "I am having people find him. Until then, well, I guess you will have to find a job."  
"I have a job."  
"Again, a job like adults have it, one that pays money, brother mine. One that pays your rent and ... whatever you live on lately." There was a side glance towards the messy kitchen.  
Sherlock looked out of the window. Ignoring often made him disappear. This was growing uncomfortable quickly.  
"There is a list of regular payments to be made and an estimation of what you need monthly to about keep up your current lifestyle in this envelope. I assumed you are quite unaware of the exact amounts you spend on shirts and shampoo each month. Either that or you are even more ridiculous than I thought." he placed it on the table, but being ignored further, stuck it between two of his toes.  
"There is a box of things from the house I brought for you. It's in the car." Mycroft got up.  
"Why?"  
"Why what?" he turned again, a frown between his brows.  
"They moved out?"  
"Sherlock, they had to, your parents are in a tight spot at the moment. I thought I explained so efficiently." Mycroft's voice pitched as he had heard it only once or twice in his life. It wasn't often that he felt out of control.  
"Yes, you did."  
He waited for him to return but wouldn't look up when he placed the box near the door. They both lingered in their place for a moment, Mycroft hestiant to step into the flat completely once more.  
"One more thing, Sherlock. I watched the show. Stop calling Greg by the wrong first name. I appreciate the gesture but it isn't...neccessary and rather childish. I can fight my own wars."  
"So can I. It never stopped you. Besides, like always you take yourself way too seriously. I just can't stand his indecent stupidity."  
Mycroft nodded, buttoned up his coat and left.

"Nine months isn't too bad. And it sure helps to know that Derek will be gone for so much longer."  
They sat in Mrs Hudson's kitchen, Angelo had cooked them a final dish of pasta before starting his sentence in the morning. The night before had been a glorious success and just to Sherlock's taste. Their competitor had indeed tried to poison Greg and Sherlock had demasked him in front of a packed restaurant full of an awestruck audience.  
"I'd loved to thank Greg as well. Why didn't he come?" Angelo piled another serving on Sherlock's plate.  
"Busy.Girlfriend I think. She doesn't like me. And maybe he didn't want to eat dinner with a convicted criminal, could get diffult at work." Sherlock spoke with his mouth full, he hardly stopped shoving the pasta into his mouth.  
"A girlfriend? Are you sure? I always thought you...never mind."  
"Greg? No. God, no. Mrs Hudson, this isn't one of your cheap novels." He gave her a scornful look before stealing half of her pasta from her plate. She pushed his hand away halfheartedly but let him get on anyhow.  
Angelo kept piling food on their plates until Sherlock finally fell back in his chair looking as if he had just run a marathon. He fell asleep on Hudson's couch within minutes covered by his coat.

The plan had been simple. They placed smoke bomb near the elevators and waited for the fire detectors to do the rest. In the general confusion they would wait for their suspect to leave the building and escort him aside without anyone noticing too much. All he had to do was to wait. His colleague offered cigarettes, he accepted but held it more than smoked it cowered on a balcony near the Magnussen's room. There was a broken conversation going on between the others, the occasional joke to cover up the tension as the final minutes ticked by. Mycroft pushed back the sleeve of his black coat to watch them count down.   
"One minute." They extinguished their cigarettes, Mycroft placed his hand on the handle of the door. As they heard the alarm go of, he pushed it open and marched ahead, with long steps.  
"Not inside."   
"Shit. Where else?"  
"Dining hall?"  
"Ground floor. Stairs." they picked up their pace. Their way got more crowded as people hastened for the exits, escaping from the constant drizzle of the sprinklers.The smoke added to the general confusion.   
"Over there."  
"Get him." he fell back as the other two hastened through the crowd. He had no desire to meet him eye to eye. Standing near the elevator, he removed his gloves waiting for their signal of the operation successfully ended. And then he spotted him in the middle of the confused crowd streaming from the restaurant of the complex. Clara was with him, some elderly relative, probably his mother. Dressed rather formally, some celebration. Greg stirred her ahead with one hand round her back. She leaned towards him, gestures of practised intimacy. It was apparent he felt uncomfortable in the unusual attornment. He followed them with his eyes just a moment too long, Greg's professionally trained, sweeping glance met his for a split second. Averting his eyes, he kept them on the screen of his phone, not moving, paralysed by seeing what had been known to him anyway. Why observing it made such a difference, he had no idea but apparently his heart had decided to run wild, beating hard against his chest. And of course Greg wouldn't have the decency to just ignore him, he saw him approach from the corner of his eyes. All he could do was to make the first move, keep control of the conversation. He would face the man that had invaded his brain later that night, he would not falter now before the man he had allowed to love him in the same seizure of weakness. So he spoke before Greg would do so.  
" Stop panicing, it's a ruse. Just don't succumb to the temptation of imagining all this was staged to disturb your engagement party. Accept my sincere congratulations."  
"Myc. I wanted to tell you but..."  
"There is no reason to exculpate, after all, it's been three months. Efficient, is a way to describe it, I guess."  
"I'm sorry, Myc. Listen, if it would be of any help we could talk this through some other time." Greg raised a hand, about to place it on the shoulder that was tensing hard in order to surpress the shaking. Another reminiscent of once practised closeness, now painfully out of place. Greg failed completing the gesture when met by a cold glance from pale blue eyes he knew were able of much softer looks. The time frame where Mycroft had lost control of his professional outside had closed. The body in the black coat stiffened as he slid into his gloves once more.  
"How should that be of any help? And to whom? I'm convinced I have a rather good understanding of the situation. I wish you all the best, I really do. Hope to see you happy."  
Greg was about to answer something but saw another man approach, the same coat, they were becoming visible in the quickly emptying hall. He took a step back, dissolving the illusion of a intimate conversation taking place.  
"I better get going. I...they're waiting for me. Time sensitive operation." Mycroft only now noticed his coat was soaked from the water of the sprinkler system. They shared a final look, in which Mycroft believed to see something like regret or at least pain. His heart sunk. It took all his will to move.  
"Goodbye, Mycroft." Greg hadn't meant to say it.  
He watched him join his team, being intruiged again by the discrepancy between the iceman who walked like a puppet player among his unsuspecting creations with unfaltering poise and the almost boyish way he would have smiled sometimes in the comforting half shades of the night. Then he saw Clara had been watching them from the pavement, standing outside the glass dome that felt like the icecastle to him right now, arms crossed in front of her chest in unconscious but intuitive opposition. Mycroft had to pass her on his way to the waiting car, he nodded at her as if evidencing recognition but somehow he sensed it meant much more. The siren stopped, the room around him filled once more. His mother was waffling on, he couldn't and wouldn't follow. The car slowly pulled off and Greg thought of bridges in Amsterdam, of fading memories of excitement and faint inklings of meaning. With Clara there would be no surprises now. The road was mapped and well travelled by, a predictable journey to the cornerstones of existence.  
"Look at you, you're soaked to the bone. We better get home, you'll catch death in those clothes. I'im not feeling hungry any more anyhow." She ran a firm hand along his arms, squeezing some of the moist from the cloth.

They dropped his mother at her hotel, she was still high from the unexpected outcome of their night. Then the taxi carried him off through the enlightened street of the city. The lights that coloured the sky above Mycroft's tub purple.  
"Tell me something about you nobody else knows." he watched her in the reflections of the car's window. The spotlights of cars moving past cut her face into pieces. She looked at him with concern in her eyes.  
"What do you mean? You know all there is to know."  
He shrugged, it sent driplets of water to run down his back.


	63. Arch Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, I hope to deliver the final chapters much more quickly.

"I expected something more elegant, to be honest." Magnussen shifted in the chair when Mycroft entered the room. The neon light was flickering and ticking, it made everybody in the room blink.

"I save my elegant plans for those that deserve it." he placed a stack of papers on the grey table between them, studying the man in the artifical light.

"How long you think you can keep me here? Barely legal, you have nothing to charge me with."

Mycroft smiled at him, though he knew he was right. It was a matter of hours before his lawyers would track him down and make sure he would have breakfast in more comfortable surroundings.

"I'm under no illusion with regard to that. However, until then I plan to make your stay here as uncomfrotable as possible."

"Is this your way of saying thank you for being invited for a meal?"

"I didn't like the taste of it. Tasted odd. As if drugged..." he leaned forward, the two men now staring at each other over the table. 

"Mr Holmes, you should get a sense of humour. Nothing more than a little bit of harmless fun. I respect you. In some way we are alike. If it wasn't like that, you hardly would be sitting here now."

"I don't care for your respect. Let's talk about what you have been up to those last couple of weeks." Mycroft opened some of the folders and produced several photographs. His fingers tensed when Victor's remains came top of the stack. Magnussen watched him and smiled.

"Mr. Holmes, let me speak frankly here. We both know there is little you could do to stop me. There is too much at stake for you. There's those children you knicked, there is your parents and there is Sherlock. I know things that could crumble the fundaments of your existence. Imagine someone finds out how you came to get the custody for them, that no one ever seriously looked for any real relatives. What will people say when they find out about your father's streak of unfortunate financial decisions? What if Sherlock would take up those awful habits again because he finds out some more of your dirty little secrets?"

Mycroft pretended to sort the material in front of him. The flicker of the light was the only marker of time passing. He finally leaned back into the chair, folding his hands in front of his chest, looking at the face accross.

"I am under no illusion as to what we can do to stop you. It is out of the question that you will leave this building in the morning and go on as you did before. Your fate was decided long before we interrupted your dinner. This is a negotiation of a peace treaty if you like. All we want is to share your collected wisdom about people in this town."

Magnussen laughed, Mycroft knew he was bluffing to win time. They both knew that they relied on the delicate equilibrum of power that kept both their networks in place. Neither of them was able to move too far or the whole carefully arranged system would come crashing down.

"And what would you be offering in return, Mr Holmes?"

"Your papers are working hard along the line between legal and illegal. I mean, listening to private conversations coming from number nine or the palace isn't exactly something you would like the public to know about, is it? And it would be easy for us to stop these...shenagians of yours." He reached for his pocket, and produced his mobile phone, looking at the screen.

"I will go outside now and you will have exactly ten minutes to familiarize yourself with the material on this table and the contract we have designed. I hope you will find it acceptable, otherwise this entire situation could be turning rather uncomfortable...for both of us." He slowly got up and walked towards the door, feeling Magnussen's eyes follow him.

"Mr Holmes, I know you believe yourself quite aloof all this. I think you underestimate your own emotional involvement with the people around you. Let this be a warning to you: there is little that will be able to bring you down but you yourself." Magnussen watched him as he turned to face him once more. Mycroft tried to look bored and unimpressed but he knew with painful certainty that Magnussen was right. 

"Good night Mr. Magnussen, I shall send you someone else to discuss any questions of detail."

"Good night, Mr Holmes, sleep tight. Give my love to your family."

 

When he sat in the car, he felt like waking from a very bad dream. The sun was about to come up when they pulled up in front of his house. He dreaded going in but seeing his own face in the mirror of the driver, he sighed and slowly dragged himself inside. There was a note next to the phone by the nanny. Greg had called twice. Looking at his phone, he saw his voicemail also held several messages. He muted it and tossed it onto the kitchen table before pulling the plug on his landline. It landed on a stack of fresh uniform shirts that one of the nannies had begun sewing name tags into. He picked up one of the small pieces of cloth, running his fingers over the finely stiched, red letters that spelled Leo's name. He swallowed down a heavy sigh reaching the H at the end. There would be another Holmes, another one dragged into the circle of the cursed. 

 

About half a year, that was how long the money would last him. He had given his brother's suggestion of working a half hearted attempt, started three jobs in the course of a week and either had been fired or just hadn't turned up again the second day. Now Sunday was approaching over the greyish fog that filled the streets below his windows. He gave the place a thorough look and decided he had never really liked it. Now its proximity to Greg, once its biggest advantage in the eyes of his worried relatives, had become its greatest fault. Even imagining meeting the man in the street without the purpose of work now gave him a sick feeling low in his abdomen. They had let him dwell in their most private spheres, he knew about all those dark sides to the glamourous personas both Holmes brothers had taken a lot of care to establish. He had seen and knew and then had turned away in disgust. Mortal after all. Sherlock sighed, running his large hands over his face. As much as he despised his brother, he despised Greg for making him feel pity for the older one. He himself had nothing to hold against the man but it felt like treason after all. Someone would have to explain. It was four in the morning and so he decided to pay Molly a visit.

 

Mycroft waited, fully dressed, leaning against the wall in Lissiˋs room. The child showed no signs of confusion when she woke under his watchful stare.

"Good morning." he whispered into the early morning, waiting for her to fully arrive in reality.

"Your eyes are red." she stated, as she came over and gave his face a closer look. As he was sitting on the floor, they were seeing eye to eye.

"Hay fever. Which is why we will go on holiday, as soon as Leo wakes up."

"Where are we going?"

"Whereever you like." he moved a strand of hair from her forehead, trying to divert her attention from his face. It didn't work. He saw her taking in the scratching marks along his throat where he had dwelled too long with his hand brush, relishing in the relaxing pain it produced on his skin. He closed the uppermost button on his shirt and picked her up. The grasp of her hands around his neck felt tighter than usual.

 

To his great disappointment, Molly's irritation was only a mild one when she found him waiting at her kitchen table on her way to the shower.

"Just because you have a key doesn't mean you can't announce your arrival any more." she mumbled, turning the kettle on as she passed it. Sherlock got up and followed her until he was stopped by a quickly closing bathroom door. He kept talking on through he closed wooden door about how he had reorganised the entire supermarket by much more logical criteria but had been fired nevertheless.

"I certainly will never frequent such an establishment again. The whole concept...ridiculous. And the bordeom. You can train any ape to do the job. I can't understand how people bear it. I thought my mind would explode."

There was a cloud of steamy air as she stepped outside, holding on to her plush, yellow dressing gown. She stopped right before him, looking up at him with the stern look of a bemused parent. 

"Sherlock, people stand it because people need money."

"Seems a weak motivator to me." he rolled his eyes,

"That's because you never worried about these things. How did you get the idea of working into your head in the first place?"

He watched her hair curl in the humid air and thought about the segment in her DNA that caused the effect. What Myc would do to share that segment, the thought made him smile.

"What are you laughing at?" she nervously pulled the two parts of the gown closer around herself.

"How much of our DNA is identical you reckon? Probably more than mine and Myc's."

She blushed and cleared her throat. "Well, whatever your reason, hardly anyone works because it's fun. I used to work at the tills during uni." She sneaked past him, trying to avoid too much contact in the narrow hall. Still some of the yellow plastic fur ended up on his shirt.

"Didn't your parents pay for that?"

"I only have a father, and it wasn't enough. I shared my flats all the way to the last semester."

"You shared a flat? Who would be stupid enough to share a flat with you?" she turned upon the insult watching him pick a toothbrush from his coat's pocket and making for the kitchen sink.

"It's what people do when they can't afford a place alone." 

He turned his foamsmeared face towards her, giving a disbelieving look. "My brother shared a house in feeble attempt to socialise. Went very wrong. I think those housemates still shiver at the thought of him." he sputtered.

Molly poured water into the two waiting cups when the thought hit her. She put the kettle down in one quick movement, spilling hot water on the counter.

"Ouh don't be stupid. There is nothing I could do to my brother that could stop him from forcing his money on me. It's a power thing. And though I have several plans on how to get rid of him temporarily, if ever I need to, none of them involves the atrocities you just imagined so stereotypically. Every grand character needs an arch enemy after all."

She couldn't help but laugh.

"It's true. The characters in Leo's books always have an atagonist, some arch enemy and a devout helper to boss around. Must be some pop culture thing..."

"And who is your helper then?" There was a nervous timbre in her voice.

He rinsed his mouth thoroughly before answering with his half annoyed lecture untdertone in his voice. "My life isn't a novel, Molly. You are being ridiculous again."

 


	64. The Way We Live in Moments of Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the long wait but real life keeps happening and I got important applications to write and keep doing this instead. Anyhow...this was a strange chapter that somehow developed at its own account. I actually meant to reconcile the family but somehow those guys refuse. Sorry for all the dark feelings...

"It's my birthday after all next month and Leo wants to go too!" Seeing rage building in the tiny person in front of the travel agent's window made Mycroft curse the moment he had thought of letting them decide upon their destination. It had been the effect of an overemotional moment thinking about Leopold's close departure for school. Now the gurn of Mickey Mouse was threatening him from behind the glass. An all too happy family was pointing at the fireworks over an all too American version of a palace. 

"You promised!" she looked up at him and he looked at the overly happy face of the blonde woman on the poster. Her happiness was sickening.

"She's right, you promised." Leo answered, his voice full of schadenfreude.

"Really? It's just people in costumes and a lot of plastic facade."

"You promised!" the answer came unisono and Mycroft lifted his hands above his head in defeat as the children pushed the door open with noisy cheers of joy.

"Three tickets to hell on earth, please." he sighed, pointing at the advert in the window. The sales assistant gave him a strange look before turning towards the computer.

"He doesn't like plastic, you know." Lissi tried to explain as she climbed into his lap. 

"I think it's more that he hates childish stuff." Leo added, adressed at his sister.

"Right." the young woman was little interested but wanted to avoid a spreading of the conflict. "We have many parents here who feel similar but you will find that theme parks have a lot on offer for adults as well."

"I'm sure that's the case." Mycroft leaned his head into his hands on her desk.

"Three tickets you said?" She was typing away quickly.

"Yes. Our mother is dead." Lissi added and Mycroft felt lightheaded.

"I'm very sorry to hear it. My condolency." She spoke, giving Mycroft a brief look.

"Mycroft wasn't her boyfriend he was only there when she died. She was shot, you know. Then he said we can stay with him because dad was missing. And Greg has a new girlfriend or actually she is an old girlfriend but he doesn't want to come on holiday with us any more, though he said he would one time." 

Mycroft tightened his grip around Lissi's waist but she wouldn't pick up on the hint and waffled on. "Nanny Zara says that it's a shame because Myc is mentally frag...lile anyway which is because uncle Sherlock is a druga...mphh."

Leo covered her mouth with his hand, his face white like a sheet.

"Maybe we need to have second thoughts on this trip. Thank you for your time." Mycroft got up, holding on to a protesting Lissi.

 

"There simply are things you say in public and things you don't. Pass me the bow tie." Mycroft stood in front of the grand mirror in his room, getting dressed for dinner at Q's house. Lissi held out the black tie to him, jumping up and down on the old sofa next to him.

"Why?"

"Most people are simple in their ideas about the world, they get angry or scared when they find there are other ways than they imagined. And the way we are, the way we live is different from most people, Lissi. When you tell everybody how your mother died, why you live with me, that Sherlock is...well Sherlock, people will begin to ask questions and that is never a good thing. I'm trying to save you the pain of being different. Cufflings. The ones with the red stone."

She jumped from the sofa and grabbed them from his bedside table, handed them over and studied him in the mirror. "But I like things to be like they are." she shrugged, reaching for his hand to have closer look at the dark red of the stones. He let her be, waiting for the thought forming in her mind to be uttered.

"Are you frightened sometimes?" she finally asked, searching his eyes.

"Everybody is frightened from time to time. Are you?"

"No. Not when you are here. Because you know everything."

He tried to look busy, redoing the bow tie once more.

"Got your suitcase ready for tomorrow?"

She grinned in reply and ran off towards her room.

 

The news that Rowan had been found reached him in the queue for a rollercoaster. The heat, the people, it was getting to him quickly. He pressed Lissi's hand into Leo's and hurried for some shade when things began to blur at the edges. He could hardly concentrate on the report that was hastily given to him on the phone, the noise and smell of a restaurant nearby was sickening.

"Myc, hurry up, it's almost our turn and we aren't allowed on alone!" Leopold wave at him with an impatient gesture, he nodded and turned away, stepping into a dropped packet of chips, He tried to clean his shoes of the mayonnaise as the agent explained how Rowan had tried to escape from an appartment building by jumping onto the balcony below, had missed and fallen several floors down. He was alive but just about.

"Did anyone inform that mother of his?"

"There were no exact orders on what she was to be told. I thought it wise to refer back to you first."

"Yes, thank you. I have no idea how deeply she is involved in the whole matter, if she knows at all. I shall call you back shortly." He hung up, weighing the phone in his hands. Sweat broke from his forehead when he realized he had never given this part of the affair a second thought. How to tell their father his son had been severyl injured. How to tell that other woman her son was a criminal. A ore than annoyed yell from the queue brought him back to this more imminent part of reality and he joined the ranks of the waiting once more.

 

His father left a very confused message on his phone which Sherlock listened to leaning over a corpse, trying to identify the dead man's perfume. Greg was about to protest, the time he had been able to keep a protesting Sally away from him was running out. Sherlock silenced him with a single glare while ilstening to the confused tale of his father going to see a hospitalised Rowan.

"Trouble at home?" Greg asked, avoiding his eyes.

"Don't you have some wedding to organise or something? You really shouldn't burden yourself with other people's business as well." Sherlock hissed, rising back to his feet. " I assume you haven't managed to find out who that man is, have you?"

"We only found him half an hour ago." Greg defended himself in an feeble attempt to stand up to the wave of tension that was now always present when they were in the same room. He watched Sherlock take a picture of the dead. 

"What is that for? You can't just photograph him."

"Sending it to my network. We can't wait for your charming collection of somnabulists to come up with the information."

"Your network? Since when do you have a network?" Greg huffed, watching Sherlock packing up with a slightly miffed expression.

"My work relies on the availabilty of information and since you regularly fail to provide such I had to look for it somewhere else."

"Looking somewhere else souns like a brilliant idea to me!" Sally was back, her arms crossed in front of her. "Greg, this is unacceptable and no, there is nothing in those bins downstairs that would be helpful in any way."

"Good day Mr Lestrade."

"Wait, that's it? What did you find out?"

"That I'm once more surrounded by idiots!" Sherlock shouted back as he left, his phone already back at his ear.

 

There's another one dead. Backbencher. SH

 

Yes, I know. Keep out of this! It's being dealt with. MH

 

The way you dealt with Rowan? I fear the day you got no one else but me to deal with. SH

 

Meetings of their family were awkward most of the time but even for their standards, this gathering was one of the more strange ones. Both brothers buried their hands in the pockets of their coats as if in secret understanding, waiting for their father to finish his visit to his unconscious son. Like the guards at the palace they stood, shielding their mother sitting between them from the world. She held on to her handbag with an iron grip, staring at the people in their white coats that went along the windowless hallway.

"I don't understand why they haven't brought him to Bart's, I had never heard of this hospital." She turned to give the place a better look. 

Mycroft kicked the tip of his umbrella with his polished shoe, ignoring the question and Sherlock's challenging look. He had no inclination to be the one breaking the news to her. He had protested wildly when their father had announced he would bring her along to this.

"This is a hospital that specialises in victims of accidents like this one, isn't it, Mycroft?" Sherlock cleaned his fingernails, watching his brother from the side.

"A special hospital for people who fell from their balcony?"

"Yes, an those that have accidents in junk yards or are unhappy enough to befriend someone only Mycroft knows the name of." He stepped closer to Mycroft, smiling an icy grin, who ignored him, staring at his mother's fading hair.

"Sherlock, sometimes I'm not sure I get what exactly you are saying. It's not like your brother is responsible for everything that is happening in this town." she sighed, opening her purse rummaging through it.

"No, of course not mother. It's him and this other one, whatever his name." he hissed, getting close to Mycroft's face.

"Stop it, for goodness sake. Your making a fool of yourself." Mycroft finally answered.

"Only because you are trying to fool me and I'm not having it Mycroft. I want to know who that person is and why you are protecting him and you should know brother mine, once I got my mind set on something, there is no stopping me. So just make it easy on both of us and tell me your creepy little version of this horrid tale, will you?"

"Boys, this really isn't the right place to fight. I know things have been tense lately but do pay a little respect to...well, your father's son, I guess."

"I'm waiting, Mycroft." Sherlock had begun to circle both of them like a cat, waiting for it's prey to give in and leave its hiding place. His mother threw uneasy looks back and forth between them both, an innocent victim trapped in this war of minds, a fight of willpower taking place only inches above her head.

"Go on, mummey is dying to hear what you are actually working. Tell her why people you deal with end up dead on street corners, why those children only leave the house under the heaviest of protection. Confess, brother mine."

It was the mimicking that broke it for Mycroft. Sherlock could see his pulse speeding up in the vein on his throat. He fought the urge to press a finger against it to receive exact measurement of the rage he produced. Enraging his brother always offered relief when he was helpless otherwise. All it took was another clearing of the throat, another raised eyebrow and he would explode like a vulcano, burst at the seams and make the walls come down with his voice. Break the place, startle his father behind that door, who was holding the hand of his dying son though he had been too busy to do so when Mycroft had been down with an abused brain. He would tear down this town just by the power of his voice and give Sherlock some reassurance of his power, a sign that he was still in control of everything, his almighty, infallible protector and brother. Sherlock felt all this and understood for the first time and it sent a wave of fear through him that quickly changed into anger again as he saw his mother's clueless face.

"Sherlock, did you take anything? What are you going on about? He fell off a balcony."

"And you believe that?" Sherlock kept his stare on his victim, arms crossed painfully tense in front of his chest.

"William Sherlock Holmes, for once you will do as you are told and keep away from things that aren't your business. You've had your share of tantrum now sit down like a good boy and shut up before I throttle you." To his great disappointment, Mycroft kept his voice down, refused the cleaning thunderstorm. It was more like the piping of a kettle, slow relief of pressure.

"Why are you protecting this bastard, Mycroft? Why aren't you simply bringing him down?"

"Keep, away Sherlock! I'm not proecting him, I'm protecting you and I will do so even against your will, you giant idiot!"

"So he didn't fall off a balcony?" She looked back and forth between both of them with the confusion of a puppy whose ball had suddenly disappeared in his master's pocket.

"Mother!" Mycroft was actually holding on to his own, receeding hair as he spoke. "Think, for once try to think for yourself. People don't just fall off balconies, do they? He didn't wake up and just think, why I should take a shortcut today and just jump off my balcony! Didn't you notice that he turned up in your life and then disappeared again and that you had to move in the aftermath? Mummey, I'm begging you!"

She looked at him, the confusion was fading. Sherlock held his breath. Mycroft didn't beg. Not even their mother. There was a conversation going on between them that had always been there as long as he could remember but he had been born too late to be taking part in it. Or maybe he was he original source of it.

"There are two reasons I can imagine why you accept this from him. Either you really believe what he tells you or you are so scared of standing on your own, this is the more acceptable alternative. Both make me question your sanity, however."

"Mycroft." she shook her head, rummaging through her purse again. "He tries. And we belong together. This is what family is about. Maybe one day you will meet someone and understand."

"Sometimes trying is just not good enough." Mycroft spoke slow and under his breath, kicking the tip of his umbrella again. 

Sherlock felt like that boy again that stood behind the door of the library, trying to catch pieces of the fight going on inside between Mycroft and his father. He felt the desperation of being left alone again. Mother in bed, unable to demand him to stay. He himself putting all his trust in their sole defender. Mycroft would see it and sigh, smooth the top of the dining table then get up and face their father once more, demanding him to stay. He would always lose that particular battle. And Sherlock grew up and came to believe he secretly approved of his actions because he never opposed him in any other way. 

"Mycroft is right, he has always been." Sherlock's words hung in the air as both of them stared at him. He straightened his back, waiting out the moment. No one moved and then that door opened.

"Father, I'm taking mother home now. Let me know if the situation changes." Mycroft put a firm grip on his mother's arm, as usual she obeyed with little resistance and Sherlock hated her for it.

 


	65. Moving Out and Moving On

"Yes, I'll let him know. Thank you for calling." Q hung up the phone with a gesture too careful to not convey the obvious message received. Mycroft was cowered into an armchair, obsessively turning a glass in his hand to watch the light from the fireplace break in the crystal cut. He had stuck to water and still he felt drunk. He wasn't the only guest tonight, there was another one with a horrid cut along the throat, the sort of thing you ignored and wouldn't ask any questions about. He looked at them both and then silently retreated with his paper in hand. Q gave him a grateful smile.

Mycroft watched his mobile, waiting for his father to call with the same news but no such call came. She eventually sat down on the armrest of his Victorian chair.

"Stop the sulk, Tristam. He probably knows you know already. I'm just sorry it was futile."

"If I would have brought back the money, he might not have blamed me for it. It's the way he is I guess. And maybe if he had died over there, the impact would have been minimized."

He could see that there was a movement in her hand towards his cheek but she stopped somewhere midair, correcting her glasses on her nose instead.

"Is that him?" Mycroft pointed at a picture above the mantlepiece, a black and white picture of a handsome man, maybe Sherlock's age. 

She cleared her throat before getting up. He took it as an affirmation and got closer, trying to find resemblance between them.

"How?" He turned, found her trapped in thought, staring through him. She eventually smiled at the question, running her hands along the seams of her skirt.

"Car bomb. Should have been me but he knicked the car that night to see his girlfriend. I had told him a dozen times not to fuzz with my stuff. That was just the sort of person he was, never listened to me." she laughed.

Mycroft nodded, pressing the cold of the glass against his chin. "I will have to have constant surveillance on Sherlock."

"Or maybe you could just talk to him."

"Talking is just not an option. Not after tonight."

 

Greg had known it to be a bit of a risk to send Sherlock an invitation but somehow it had felt much more wrong not to. It came back unopened, with address unknown scribbled accross in the detective's erratic hand.

"What did you expect?" Clara commented, as he tried to cram the card into his pcket before she would reach the table. Greg blushed.

"Besides, I'm glad about it, it would have been a nightmare to fit him into the seating. I mean who would you have placed him next to?"

"Molly." Greg answered stubbornly though he knew she had a point.

"They sold their house some months ago. Lucy heard it from her friend from school who sometimes does the hair for that girl who married that broker. And not because they wanted to."

"I'd wish you wouldn't get involved in such gossip." He looked for his favourite mug in the cupboard but couldn't find it. He reached for one of the new, white china bone ones instead.

"Cobbler stick to your last, is all I'm saying, those are a weird bunch."

Greg tried to remind himself he loved her and got ready for work.

 

"Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, here we are." Mycroft dropped the heavy bag in the middle of the room, careful not to let go of Leo's hand. It looked empty with no covers on the bed and the bare walls. Leo stacked the violin case onto a set of drawers. Its corners were worn and Mycroft had offered more than once to get a new one but it had to be this one, the one with Sherlock's initials scratched into the worn leather.

"Nice view, don't you think?" Leo nodded. The rugbyfield was melting seamlessly into a long row of fields in late summer sun. Mycroft sat down on the small bed and began unpacking the clothes into the small wardrobe by the door.

"You remember where to bring your laundry?" Leo nodded. He had begun stacking books onto a shelf above the bed. They worked in silence until all the bag had been emptied. Mycroft took the alarmclock and set it. 

"If you get up half an hour before the others you won't have trouble getting into the shower. And you'll won't have to rush your breakfast."

"Okay." Leo unpacked his pencilcase and rearranged the stack of books on his desk. There was the constant buzz of noises from the hallway outside.

"They'll ask me to sign you up for activities for this term. Any preferences? There's rugby and hockey and soccer or track and field for sports and then there is drama I guess and pottery?"

"What did you do?"

"Dad signed me up for Latin and the newspaper club. I joined the debating team when I was older."

"And what did Sherlock do?"

"Cause trouble, mostly." Mycroft sighed when it wouldn't produce a smile on the boy's face. "He did a lot of drawing."

"Latin and drawing then." He climbed onto the desk in front of the window looking into the courtyard below. It was full of parked cars, nervous mothers and forcedly composed fathers. Some on their phone.

"Leo...I don't know how to say this."

"I know."

"Good."

The silence stretched as the boy watched him sign several forms. He stopped and watched the ink dry on his last signature. He remembered these moments well, the same pressing, strange silence burdened with so many things that needed saying urgently.

"Well, you got my number, and Anthea's and I will get back to you as soon as I..."

"Myc, I know. And I can call Lissi on the landline and I can come home every weekend if I choose and it's only four weeks to the first holidays." 

"Yes, good."

There was a knock on the door. "Sir, if you would like to come down to the assembly hall there is a meeting for all parents of new students. You'll have time to say good-bye afterwards.

"Yes, right." Mycroft blushed when he noticed his hand shaking as he took the umbrella Leo was holding out for him. He was already halfway down the stairs when suddenly he couldn't breathe. He turned on the spot and rushed back to the room where Leo was putting up photographs on the wall above his bed. Mycroft recognized himself in a rollercoaster, pulling a strange face. Leo was next to him throwing his hands in the air, Lissi looked rather composed for the way she had cried once they had gotten off the hellish machine minutes later.

"Just one thing, boy."

"I won't forget to brush my teeth Myc." Leo rolled his eyes, scotch tape between his teeth.

"I know that. Leopold Holmes, I just need you to know that whatever happens and whatever you do or don't do, or be or become... and stuff... I...I'm going to be in your corner." 

Leo took another photo and pressed it onto the wall with his hand. Lissi with Mickey Mouse ears and the biggest pile of ice cream anyone her age had ever devoured in one sitting.

"I love you too, Myc. Now get out. This is embarrassing."

"Good, well not good, but good. Bye, then." Mycroft tried to close the door behind himself but was hindered by another boy, stooping in to borrow scissors.

 

Greg would have admitted to himself that it was more than mere coincidence that took him along Sherlock's street on his way to a case if he had been honest with himself. But he avoided such foolishness lately, it potentially would cause a lot of turmoil in his life that was slowly organising itself along normal lines. The younger Holmes hadn't turned up much at the Yard lately, had told Molly he was concentrating on private clients at the moment. He stopped the car in front of the door, trying to see the windows of the flat. The curtains were gone. He wrinkled his forehead and got out of the car. A janitor was leaning on his broom in front of the entrance. Greg fumbled for his ID and greeted the man. 

"I'm looking for Sherlock Holmes. Does he live here?"

The man gave the ID a suspicious look. "He used to. Moved out just hours ago. I was waiting for your type to turn up actually a long time ago. Looney, that man. Strange to say the least. The things he would throw into the garbage, I can tell you."

"You took the time to go through his garbage?"

"Well, no. Just saying."

"You know where he moved?" 

"No. There was a bunch of people who collected his rubbish. Those strange people in their black cars. Said something about downtown. Is it organised crime?"

"No, not that. Thank you." He repocketed his ID, turning to leave.

Back in the car, he weighed his options. Of course he could just wait for him to turn up at the Yard again but somehow he felt an absolute urge to see the man's face, make sure it still wore its arrogant smile unabashed by everything that had been going on. 

 

In the end it was Molly who had produced the missing link. Greg was standing in a backstreet, watching the scene from the shadows. Sherlock was loading boxes from a black van, Mrs Hudson trying to hug him every time he passed her. Though he couldn't see the young man's face he had a happy air about him, the way he jumped down the last of the steps on every tour.

"You think he would accept if we went over to help?" Greg jumped when he heard Mycroft's voice behind his back. He was standing even deeper in the shadow, only a part of his grey trousers visible. 

"He's not looking as if he needed any." Greg leaned back against his car again. He could feel his heart in his throat. 

"No. You're right. For once he might be just about in the right place."

"And why are you hiding back here? He's not keen on seeing you either then?"

"Well, well, Sherlock is trying to break free from me. It's what he tells that Mrs Hudson, anyhow. She told me when we had tea last night." Greg laughed heartily when he saw Mycroft's grin who had moved closer, watching Sherlock unload a cow's scalp wearing headphones.

"What is that?"

"I have no idea." Mycroft sighed and fished his watch from his pocket by pulling on its silver chain.

"Myc..."

"Don't." Mycroft stretched and rearranged his jacket. "I am relieved to see you are still around him. He'll never admit it but he is very much a people's person. I sleep more soundly knowing we share this concern for him."

Greg saw him press the familiar code on his phone to call a car.

"Off to save the world again?"

"Not the world, not tonight. Just Brussels."

"Good luck. Not that you'd need it." The car was passing them slowly, stopping further off but within sight.

"And good luck to you, Mr Lestrade. Being around my brother you will certainly need it." Mycroft swirled his umbrella and began to walk towards the car, already pressing his phone to his ear. Accross the street Mrs Hudson was collecting some final bags of Sherlock's belongings from the sidewalk. The detective's head appeared in the door, gesturing her to come in. The door closed behind them. Greg waited another moment, watching the crowds walking along the street. He thought of Clara and the dinner that was waiting for him. Not Brussels, just dinner. He tried a smile and got into the car. 

 


	66. Mycroft Ponders Happiness

Mrs Hudson was used to dealing with strange characters. Her time with her husband had made sure of that. And still she felt kind of nervous when Mycroft stood at her doorstep. She cleaned her hands on her apron that were dusted from baking and gave him a questioning look.

"Mrs Hudson? My name is Holmes, Mycroft, that is. I'm the one that paid your lawyer."

"You're Sherlock's brother." she smiled relieved, holding out her hand which he took after some hestitation.

"That's also a way of saying it, yes. I would like to have a word with you. Can I come in?"

She nodded and stepped aside, leading Mycroft into the hallway. He gave the place a long look, running a hand up the handle of the stairs. She went into her kitchen before him and offered a chair, which he took but stayed at the very edge of it, folding his hands between his knees, the black coat setting him aside from all the other surrondings. 

"I appreciate your offer to take my brother in."

"Oh, it's my pleasure, he is such a darling and it's less of taking him in than renting out the flat above."

"I think we are both aware that most people wouldn't see it that way." Mycroft smiled but declined the cup of tea she was offering.

"Most people misunderstand him, I think. He has never been anything but a joy to me."

"I assume I won't have to dance around the topic with you then. My brother has special needs and habits I'd rather see monitored and be informed about. Despite all his assurance otherwise, he is not in a position to get along alone. Now, my help is being declined lately, we do hve our differences." Mycroft opened a silver box from the inside of his coat and retireved a card with his phone number on it. He leaned it against Mrs Hudson's tea cup. She picked it up and gave it an acknowledging look.

"He claims you had his best friend murdered, that is more than differences in normal families."

"As you might have noticed, we are a lot but ordinary. And he was more than a friend I'm afraid. There is little I wouldn't do to keep Sherlock safe, which is exactly what I'm trying to tell you here."

"I understand, Mr Holmes but what I'm not yet sure about is how I am to help you with that?"

"Well, first of all I expect you to call when he is digressing into usage again or get hit by a car,things of such nature, I'm sure you understand. Secondly, I would ask you to raise his rent."

"His rent? But he won't be able to afford the place then." she huffed, pouring herself another cup of tea.

"Not alone, no. I think it would be well for him if he had someone living with him. You also have to thin kabout yourself here, this is an estate that could bring you considerably more. Isn't that asking a little too much giving that up just because of your motherly attachment to Sherlock?"

She laughed loudly, shaking her head. "You are a strange bunch, the two of you. You want me to force him to take a flatmate? Why?"

Mycroft leaned back in his chair and studied her face with a smile. He couldn't hide that he began to understand why his brother would like her company.

"I would like to see him seeing alone less. Despite everything, he craves the company. I'm here with the best of intentions."

She gave him a long look and smiled in the end. "I imagined you to be different from what he tells me about you."

"His version of me is...biased to say the least. I know better than putting emphasis on my...suggestion with you but I hope I could convince you that I have Sherl's well-being in mind. Think about it." He smoothed the table cloth, there were little green teacups stitched onto it. as he got up, he drummed the fingers against the surface.

"Just another thing. I will have someone check on him from time to time, so don't get excited if you find cars passing your house more often than one might find usual."

"You worry too much about him, young man. He needs to be on his own for a while to see what you do for him. Just give it some time." she crossed her arms and followed him towards the front door.

"I don't need to emphasise that this meeting best remains between you and me?"

"I'm old but not stupid." she held the door as he turned and smiled at her a last time.

"Good-day Mrs Hudson."

"Take care, Mycroft." she giggled as she closed the door.

 

Two days turned into a week and without a regular sleep pattern he hardly noticed. It were only the daily updates on Lissi that kept him somehow connected to time. There was a moment when the world outside the meeting rooms and hotels where they stayed seemed so surreal, he was surprised the sun was shining once he stepped outside to get into a car for the airport. He watched a young colleague who struggled with her suitcase whose wheel was broken. The young woman smiled when she reached him as if apologizing for the show.

"Airport?"

"Yes, finally. Thought I was going to die in there."

Mycroft smiled, carefully folding his jacket over his arm. Though autumn was in the air, it had become rather warm once more.

"My boyfriend is rather mad it took so long. I had promised to be back by Saturday."

"Oh. I'm sure he'll understand." What else was he to say. The car arrived and he held the door open for her, then handed the broken suitcase to the driver.

"Not so sure about that. It was supposed to be my wedding yesterday." she laughed, clearly nervous, pulling her tight skirt back into place.

Mycroft tried to look sympathetic and turned up the airconditioning. What point was there in telling her she would have to make a decision at some point or find someone who worked for the same, mad circus.

"I never could stand coming home to an empty place. I mean that must be just awful when this...I mean I love my work but if this is all you have..." she had begun combing her hair with her fingers, checking her lipstick in the reflection of the blacked out windows.

 

It was very late when he arrived, he didn't turn on the lights but made his way to his office in the dark. He sat in his chair for a while, listening into the silence of the house. He knew it wasn't empty, he couldn't remember a day that it had been, there were the security people in the back, Lissi upstairs in her bed, the nanny in her room next door. The floors creaked, water was going noisily through the old pipes. As a child, Sherlock had been convinced it were ghosts moving through the walls. The boy that memorised books by looking at the pages had been terrified by the idea of ghosts. The house wasn't empty, it wasn't haunted by ghosts and still he felt the cold hand of ghosting memory. He tried to remember if it had felt differently those few nights Greg had been sleeping here, on the couch in the living room mostly because Mycroft would work late and he would fall asleep waiting. There had been those moments of blissful excitement when his heart threatened to jump out of his chest just to remind him he was alive. Those moments were short lived but his most vivid memories. The rest had been painful, painful rows of defeat and boredom. In the end, Greg had been wiser than him. He had chosen the manageable over fleeting moments of lifeliness. He started the computer, the blue of the screen blinding him. Mediocrity was the problem, he couldn't stand it, neither his own nor that of others. Sociopath was probably one way to put it, attachment incapability was another that had been used behind his back. He typed in the password for accessing the camera footage. Sherlock lay on the couch in squared pyjama bottoms, some book over his bare navel. There was no sound but Mycroft was sure he was snoring from the way his nose moved. Some people seemed to have a talent for being happy. A talent for making their life bearable. Sherlock sure had it somewhere in him, Mycroft thought moving his thumb over the younger's face. As if feeling it, Sherlock moved turning his back towards the camera. The book slipped to the ground, the sound waking his brother for a short fraction of a moment. His view went to the door, then Mycroft thought he was looking directly into the camera before falling back into his slumber.

The flat's door was opened a fraction, he saw Mrs Hudson in a nightgown, peeking in. She smiled when she became aware of the figure on the couch, drummed her fingers against the door in a happy rhythm before turning of the light. "You will have to be happy for us both." Mycroft whispered, turning off the screen as well.

 


	67. The Coincidence of Fate

 

"What am I supposed to expect from life?" John huffed, watching drizzling rain fall into the garden of the hospital. The young therapist opposite sighed. They both watched a middle aged man on a bench below cowering into his dressing gown. John had seldom seen more red hair.

"You must have some idea what you would like for your life." There was some exasperation in her voice.

"I guess the things everybody else wants. A family. A purpose."

They changed the topic, talking about the people he missed, the ones he had lost, the one that had died saving his life. Well trodden terrain.

 

"How can be a grown man be so naive?" his sister sipped on her water. They sat in the lobby of the hospital, John talking little, watching the crowd. There was little to say lately. Nothing happened and people had developed a tendency to tell him what to think. A brown haired boy was counting coins onto the counter to buy a newspaper.

"Listen, happiness is an invention of...I don't know. To keep people going on. No one has...friends...relationships that work." her long nails tapped on the glass. He hated the colour.

"Some people aren't meant to be happy, they... I don't know, rich people can worry about such crap. You and me, we just need to get by tolerably. Get real and think about finding work but stop that fantasizing, for goodness sake."

"How's mum?"

"Drunk I presume. I haven't heard from her in months. For how long do they say you will need that?" she pointed at his walking stick. John shrugged, giving the thing a little kick with his "good" leg.

They parted shortly after. John pressed the button to call the elevator but then took the stairs because it would kill at least some time and would give him a reason to feel tired.

 

"Well just don't be offended by...well basically anything he says." Greg held the handle of the door to the morgue. He had given the same speech several times before but there was no such thing as too much emphasis when briefing people before meeting Sherlock for the first time.

"But he doesn't work here you said."

"It's complicated, just let him be and he will ignore you." The look on Mike Stamford told him he had understood little of what he had just tried to tell him. He held his breath and turned the knob. Sherlock was standing on one of the steel tables, talking to the corpse between his legs. Molly was minding her own business, taking no notice of the man that was having a conversation with a dead woman.

"Sherlock?" he raised his voice out of experience and habit. Sherlock's limbs twitched with annoyance as he woke from his thoughts.

"Busy!" he yelled back, his deep voice echoing from the steel doors of the freezers.

"This is Mike Stamford, our new specialist and lecturer, he'll be working down here as well. I told you about him" Greg gave Mike a gentle push to step further into the room. Sherlock ran his eyes over the man methodically, like a scanner reading in a sample.

"Don't remember you did. You can't expect me to remember all of the stupid details you utter throughout the day."

"He's stuck with a case, that puts him into a mood sometimes. But he is..." Molly whispered near Mike's ear, her eyes on Sherlock towering high above them. Mike looked at Greg trying to verify he wasn't falling victim to a practical joke here. Both of them gave him a sympathetic and apologizing look.

"Is he here a lot?" Mike whispered back as Sherlock had returned to staring at the marks on the woman's throat. He was bent by the hips to get closer without squatting down. The position looked dangerously unstable.

"Oh, no, only when he has a case but then he sort of...well." Molly couldn't stop her eyes from wandering towards the place she had found Sherlock in the early morning having a nap underneath one of the tables.

"Stop gossiping about me. You can share Molly's material, this area is mine. And no eating down here, take your lunch to the park. The smell is disturbing and you seem to have a predilection for deep fried." Sherlock had returned his attention to the little assembly, outlining a rough border through the room with his right hand. He looked like some Roman commander, dividing his troops for the battle. Molly hurried to move some of her materials to produce room for Mike who once again checked Greg's face. He pulled a face, raising his hands towards the ceiling.

"Don't expect any backup from her with regard to him, she...huge crush." the officer whispered. He gave him a slap on the back before turning to leave.

 

"That were all." Mrs Hudson closed the door behind their last candidate for the room above for the day. Sherlock was lying on the couch with his head dangling over the back. He seemed unimpressed by the inferred accusation of her utterance.

"It's not my fault the world is full of dull people."

She tutted at that, falling into one of the chairs. Her hands went over the worn fabric. 

"If you are looking for someone who is like you, this is will be a long hunt."

"I'm not looking for someone just like me, I think you don't expect me to claim I was unaware of my...uniqueness."

"Oh, you are right there and you have done everything today to prove your point. I mean, making people look at that...was that really neccessary?" She took a handkerchief from her pocket and waved towards a plastic box on the table.

"Yes it was." Sherlock's voice was turning impatient. "It is neccessary that flatmates should know the worst about each other and my study of your reactions to me has taught me that my work certainly is one of my more unique character traits."

Mrs Hudson laughed, holding her head with both hands.

"Oh Sherlock..." she got up and patted his hand, he took it for a second before turning towards the back of the sofa, signifying this conversation had come to its end. She slowly went to the door, picking up the tray with the tea on the way.

"Will you tell him about today?"

"Who, my dear?"

"Mycroft."

She took a deep breath, leaning the tray on her hips. "Sometimes it is best to make your adversary believe you are on his side so you can live unobserved and...happy."

Sherlock leaned on his arms and looked at her as he hadn't expected such an reply.

"Good night, dear." She closed the door carefully. The sound of the violin was still floating through the house when she got into bed.

 


	68. Watching the Tide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for Jona who made a difficult choice which I hope will make him happy.

The restaurant on the terrace of Westminster had been too crowded, the other ones all full of people he wasn't keen on meeting. He sent Anthea to the counter to order a coffee at the place she had eventually steered him into. She had tried to explain there was no such thing as coffee at this place. "Milk, semi skimmed, soy, rice? Any flavour?" She smiled when he lifted his hands in defeat. So she pushed him into one of the scruffy armchairs. He tried hard not to think about what a wonderful enviornment the fabric meant for bacteria. He looked around, trying to estimate the amount of people frequenting his place before him and turned pale.

"Now, just relax I spend a lot of time in these places, I'm alive and healthy. 

"Just another thing that is there to admire about you." Mycroft took a certain satisfaction out of the fact that he could make her blush by dropping the odd compliment from time to time. She handed him a sachet of sugar, rolling her eyes. 

"Went well, don't you think? Paid well anyhow." They both stared at a small screen above the counter where an MP was on the news, reading out a speech Mycroft had written. He led out a breath, stirring his paper cup.

"I guess."

"You guess?"

"Just trying to appear humble here."

"It's way too late for that, Sir. I've been working for you for a year now."

"Is that so?"

"Indeed."

"Is this about a pay rise?"

She laughed loudly at it, as if he had meant it as a joke, the coffee in her cup sloshing dangerously close to the rim. A group of women was entering the place, day off, not dressed as if coming from the office, no business in the city, two of them carrying plastic bags from some highstreet brand. One of them seemed familiar. He ran through his inventory of faces, fixating her nose. 

"You fancy her?" Anthea asked, reddening around the ears. Boundaries were blurring quickly lately between them. A fact that made him uncomfortable from time to time. He shook his head. Then he found what he was looking for.

"She works with Sherl. Well, sort of."

The group occupied a low table across from them, Anthea discretly trying to turn to see them better.

"Which one would you fancy then?"

He took another sip of coffee, pondering the best way of ending the topic once and for all. In the end he opted for prolonged silence. The conversation opposite had turned even more lively, pieces of clothing being handed back and forth. Molly somehow seemed like an onlooker though she was sitting in the very middle of it. She opened her mouth once or twice as if trying to join the ongoing chatter but always somehow missed the right moment to enter.

"Why did they all buy the same, horrid dress?" Mycroft shook his head then poured the last drops of coffee from his cup into his mouth.

"Really?" she looked at him as if she had never seen him before.

"What?"

"They're bridesmaids at a wedding. Don't tell me you don't know about this humiliating custom."

"So far no one has asked me to wear a horrible dress or attend their wedding for that matter." he could see she didn't believe him first.

"Ah, poor you. I guess it's more of a woman's thing anyway. Who of them you reckon is the bride?" She was now unashamedly watching the group, her head propped onto one of her hands. Mycroft observed her eyes for a moment or two, trying to establish whether there was envy in her enhanced interest. Instead he noticed he had begun to get attached to her.

"She isn't here."

"How do you know?"

"I know her."

"Oh, come on, just now you didn't know it's a wedding party, now you claim to know the bride."

"I know that mousey girl, I told you. That other one is also working at the Yard, I think I have been to one of her birthdays. Hence, the social circle from which she could be originating is limited. And then there is her name written in glitter on that book they've been handing round."

"Oh aren't you feeling smug now."

"Smug is maybe the wrong word." he gave her a little smile, collecting his jacket and getting ready to leave. She was still in the same playful mood, missing the hint in his comment.

"And how would you specify your emotional state then?" she got dressed as well, blinking up at him through her mascara. He didn't stop in his movements, picking up his umbrella and bag.

"Now that is a question both rather difficult to answer and very personal. Sobered from a short interlude of optimism and hope for human kind, freed of a misconception of the world and human existence as a thing with real meaning or purpose, maybe."

She laughed. "And all that because of the wedding of that..." she tried to decipher the name on the book that had been discarded on the floor.

"Mrs Clara Lestrade to be, yes. She is getting married to my exlover." he stared at the handle of his umbrella for a moment to give her time to regain control over her face. When he looked up she had only managed so partly. The one big question was written all over her face. He had gone this far, there was no point in stopping now.

"Remember the man I took to Amsterdam? Not exactly just a work related acquaintance." Watching people think through something they had never expected to hear was often very funny business. Today though the elaborate dance of her facial muscles failed to amuse him.

"Would you mind waiting for me in the car. I shall be back in a few minutes, I think I need some fresh air." Mycoft didn't wait for a reply but slowly left the coffee shop, making sure not to pay another glance at the group of women. She wouldn't follow him.

 

She found him in a park nearby in the mushy grey shades of an oak tree. Mycroft always looked out of place when not working, she thought. She went through her pockets for the small packet of disinfectant wipes she carried since working for him. She held them out with both hands standing directly in front of him like a peace offering. He took them with a pained smile, opened the sticky lid and slowly began cleaning each of his fingers in turn. She sat down in the bench next to him, trying to find the spot in the distance he was staring at.

"I am sorry."

"Specify if you will."

"For...assuming."

"Only human." The words lacked too much of the usual ironic sneer she thought. On her way here she had run through a multitude of scenarios how this conversation would end, all of them ending in her having to find a new job.

"And for bringing it up at all. Today of all days. I know you hate those jobs."

"It was my choice. And as you said it pays well. My brother is a consulting detective, I'm a consulting policy adviser in my spare time, we should consider turning it into a family business." He had begun cleaning under his fingernails but still, his voice hitched.

"Sir, I hope you don't think that this...I mean me feeling..."

"Don't." he snarled, the wiping turning more rigid. She held her breath mid sentence watching him like a dangerous animal about to attack.

"Don't." he sighed, much more softly now as he discarded the used wipe in a bin next to the bench. "Once it's spoken, there is no going back. I'd hate to lose you because of such a childish...infatuation."

She opened her mouth to protest but he raised his hand in warning. "No, no, it is. You know close to nothing about me which is good, the things you unfortunately know are not very flattering and you seem to be tricked into some helper syndrome. I insist we keep this seperate. I need you. You are good at what you do. So we will keep this strictly seperate. I don't need another of these messed up..." his breath hitched dangerously. "Absolutely not happening...ever...again....I'm done with this."

They sat in silence for a while, Mycroft trying hard to get his breathing back under control. Anthea hardly dared to move. 

"Mr Holmes, you should be breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth."

"I know!" he hissed.

"Listen. I might have formulated things a little unfortunate there. I am sorry for assuming we were friends. I understand I was pushing boundaries when asking about those women. It will not happen again."

She could almost feel the muscles in the man next to her twitch with tension.

"I'm glad we had that settled then."

She nodded, typing away on her phone for a car. Some days later she would be telling Q the tale of how she had gotten close to confessing her love to Mycroft Holmes but had gotten away with it at the coffee machine at the office. Then she would prepare his tea, remind him to eat something, take notes as he thought aloud and never mention it again.

 

"I notice that you try to avoid me." Sherlock fixed his eyes on Mike over the mirror above the little sink at the morgue who swallowed twice before shaking his head.

"That's not true. It's just that I have an urgent appointment now. Upstairs."

"And you are a bad liar." he sighed, toweling his hands on Molly's pullover hanging in the corner. "I am not trying to pick a fight, it was a mere statement. I mean I would avoid you any time if I could but Lestrade keeps emphasising that other than me you are paid to be here."

Mike just stood somewhere in the middle of the room trying to come to terms with this conversation. Sherlock never talked to anyone but Molly and then that was usual a long queue of abuses and insults. He had ignored him for weeks on end now and Mike had grown accustomed to the strange, dark shadow ghosting around the place. He was always there, didn't seem to eat or sleep unless Molly would put biscuit out for him. That made him sneak closer like a wild cat you feed on your window sill. He had convinced himself the man simply took no notice of anyone. But then that was more than a silly misconception he noticed now as noticing was exactly what he seemed to do for the entire department. Particles of grass under the fingernails of victims, remains of chili sauce on witnesses' sleeves.

"Uhm, so. You don't get paid for your work here?" Sherlock fixed him again with his eyes, moving closer.

"No."

"Why are you here then?"

Sherlock gave him a look he had last seen in his Latin teacher when he had asked him about the point of learning a dead language.

"Well, so you live of the clients you have?"

"Greg keeps telling me finances is not a topic to discuss with people you are not related to. Though I don't see why, seems people think about little else apart from sex. So, either Greg is wrong or this conversation is not of the polite sort." Sherlock quipped, already turned towards the microscope again.

"Yes, well, I guess. Sorry. I was just wondering."

Silence fell again, and so Mike jumped when Sherlock's voice suddenly reappeared out of nothing. 

"I am actually looking for a flatmate right now. I moved midtown you know."

"Oh. And you found someone you would like yet?"

"No."

"Ah."

"I mean who would want to live with someone like me."

Mike opened his mouth twice trying to answer in a comforting manner but then, who would indeed.

 

In between tourists, wandering aimlessly seemed alright. No one would pay as much as a second glance at someone standing at the riverside, counting waves below. No one could tell he was pondering to dive into them, to fight the urge to breathe until his mind gave up. It wasn't the worst way of ending it he had read. Better than leaving a mess for others to clean up by shooting yourself. Harry would sure get scarred for life by the sight. But drowning meant no harm to anyone. But then there were plenty of people around, the chances of someone jumping in after him to become a hero was too high. John wanted no more attempts of saving. It was painful business. Men like him came by the dozen, he knew, no great loss to anyone. He trotted on towards the Globe theatre, looking for a place suitable to die in peace. If he got rid of wallet and dog collar before he could even make sure Harry and his mother wouldn't find out about this. He would end up in an anonymous grave, end this horrible tale of self pity of the man that believed he had any right to expect the extraordinary from life. 

 

The phone rang twice that day without anyone on the other side of the line when Anthea picked up. Mycroft tried to appear as if he paid it no further attention, he was expecting his third client today, he was pressed for time. It was not until Anthea brought it to his attention by asking if she should have someone track back the number that he reacted.

"Probably Sherlock being bored or my mum. She is no use with mobile phones." He kept filing papers in differently coloured folders.

His new office had much larger windows, looking out over the Thamse and the Tower. It was another of those windy but sunny days when the sky was more blue than the water below.

"Would you mind if I left fifteen minutes early today, it is Saturday and I..."

He nodded in response, carefully avoiding her face.

"Saturday you say?"

"Yes, Sir. The fifth."

He took a look at his pocket watch. Half past ten. A wave of heat went through him. 

"Would you be so kind as to run down for another cup of tea for me, please?

"Sure, Sir." She picked up the china cup and he waited for the clicking of her heels to cease down the hallway. A great ship slowly floated past the scenery outside followed by the odd seagull circling above. He let the first to rings pass before picking up when it happened again. The breathing on the other side was more than just familiar. He said nothing but listened for a while.

"Where are you?" he finally spoke into the silence.

"Toilet."

"Scared?"

"Like shit."

"When?"

"Ten minutes."

Mycroft sighed, pressing his forehead against the glass of the window. Like this, the water below seemed to come closer slowly and it felt like one was floating mid air. A mere malfunction of the brain but somehow comforting.

"Myc."

"You made your choice. It's the right one."

Greg laughed breathlessly. Mycroft saw the way his face reddened with nervous spots in front of his inner eye. "Not so sure about that."

"But I am." He tried to keep his voice soft, though it began to crack around the edges with sentiment.

"I loved you, you know." there was knocking in the background.

"No you didn't. You loved the idea." the brown waves below came closer, filling his entire field of vision. There was hard breathing in the line. He listened, cursing the glass for keeping him up here.

"Mr. Lestrade." he finally said stopping the broken rhythm of breath on the other side.

"Yes?"

"It's time. You are getting married in a few minutes." A grey dove was flying past below, breaking the spell the depth had held him in.

"Good bye, Mr Holmes."

"And my most sincere wishes of luck Mr Lestrade. Good bye." He could hear Greg's mother calling his name in the background before the line was disconnected without another word. Fifteen centimetres of security glass between him and the water. Cold and shiny like ice. A palace of ice for the iceman.

"Your tea, Sir. He is waiting outside."

"Thank you." 

"Is there anything else?"

"No, thank you, see you on Monday, Anthea."

She hesitated by the door, he could hear, but closed it eventually.

 


	69. Moral Advice

"Did I come in an inconvenient moment? You look slightly...disconcerted." Magnussen didn't wait for Mycroft to offer him a chair. So he tried to look uninvolved and rearranged his own behind the safety of his desk.

"My diary is rather full, so I suggest we talk business right away."

"Oh, I am sure it is. I was informed you were to attend a wedding today. You shouldn't have cancelled for my sake, though I feel flattered by the effort."

The smile was a wide one, bleached teeths beaming at him. Mycroft opened his upmost drawer and handed over some of the colorful files. "Show me what you got on offer and I will be delighted to fill you in whereever I can."

Magnussen closed his eyes for a moment before opening the covers, getting ready to memorize.

 

"You could have just come to the party yourself if you are so interested in how it went." Molly quipped as Sherlock snatched a wrapped piece of Greg's wedding cake from her hands.

"What makes you think I was interested?" his slightly insulted tone was muffled by a load of cream in his mouth as he bit off half the piece getting up from the stairs in front of her door. He had been waiting for her to return for quite a while not feeling like going home after a case that had kept him busy for more days than he could recall.

"Come on in then." she sighed, stepping out of her heels. Not that he had waited for an invitation before strolling into her flat. Not that she minded. Her pulse sped up slightly as she watched him slipping out of his shirt that was covered in stains of an undefinable nature.

"Looks like you are going to do laundry anyway." he stated, inspecting her laundry basket before dropping the garment into it.

"Yes." she answered, half swallowing the syllable. The days activities and general romantic atmosphere in combination with free drinks certainly were demanding their toll on her but she was acutely aware of her reactions to Sherlock.

"You're tipsy." Sherlock stated as he blinked at her with narrowed eyes.

"No." she blushed.

Sherlock shrugged. "Of course you are I just don't see why you should lie about it."

Molly ignored him as he had made his way to the couch which he occupied in the usual manner, leaving no room for someone else.

"If I was to ask you to move in with me, what would I have to change to make you stay? Theoretically, I mean."

Molly froze to the spot in front of her mirror where she had been busy trying to get rid of an earring that somehow had made her earlobe swell up. "I...what?"

The curly head appeared over the back of the couch, fixing her with piercing intensity. "You still insist you are not intoxicated?"

"No...I mean nothing. Little unexpected.. the question." she gripped the little table in front of her, trying not to cry or laugh hysterically.

"Theoretically, I said Molly. Do try to concentrate, this is important. Somehow I fail to find a flatmate and it is getting tedious. I just don't see what might be the problem."

"Ah. Theoretically." she cleared her throat, trying not to stare at the bare neck that Sherlock was now stretching over the armrest of her sofa, expectant eyes piercing her.  
" Could it be that you are a little too open about what you do as work? Most people find dealing with corpses unhygenic and I mean you tend to take work home with you, don't you?"

Sherlock fixed his eyes at the ceiling, throwing both arms over the armrest as well, trying to touch the floor to stretch out his back. "I you are right, maybe I should not be so honest about this part of my life next time. But if I tell them I have no negative characteristics that should look unrealistic as well."

"Yes. I'm sure there is something else you could tell about yourself?"

"Hmm." he was already no longer listening but passed her by on his way to her wardrobe. From a box she had never noticed being there, he produced a new shirt and got dressed once more. She watched, mouth half open, quite sure he didn't notice. He left without another word, only lifting a hand as he closed the door behind himself on his way out.

"Good night." she shrieked.

 

The phone ripped through the silence of his evening as Lissi was staying with his mother. He had planned on not leaving his study until it would become absolutely neccessary. Myroft dropped his glasses on the files, rubbing his eyes before picking up the receiver.

"Yes?"

"Sir, there has been a call by a woman for you some minutes ago."

"What woman?"

"Sir, she refused to give her name, she insisted you would know about her."

"I don't know any women apart from you, obviously."

Anthea swallowed a reply for the sake of peace before going on. " She was crying, Mr Holmes. I have her number do you care to talk to her?"

He finished scribbling something in the margin of a press release on Magnussen's growing influence on the press market. He had bought another, big newspaper. "Yes, put me through, would you?"

The call was picked up immediatly and a single sob was enough to know whom he was dealing with.

"Irene?"

"Sorry to call but I kind of could use your help in a rather delicate matter."

"Stop crying, I can't stand it. Where are you, what delicate matter?"

There were several strangled sobs before she spoke again, much more composed as he noticed to his own relief.

"I got into an argument with a client tonight. It...I don't think it would be wise to call an ambulance. He...too much publicity."

"For him or for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Woman! Concentrate! Do you need the ambulance or him?"

"He's gone."

"Where are you?"

He scribbled the address on the back of his hand, already ringing for a driver. He hung up without a further word, his heart was racing.

"I'll drive myself, just get the car out please." His driver nodded, long accustomed to not questioning his actions any more.

 

He simply passed the counter at the expensive hotel outside town, waving his ID at the man behind it. The elevator seemed to take an eternity, he cursed under his breath, pressing the gilded button several times. The elderly couple wh owas waiting as well, passed him several looks which he answered with his most grim stare. As the doors opened with a melodious sound he marched right in, making the doors close in their shocked faces.

"Irene? Open up!" he banged against the door with his fist when it took quite a while for her to open the door. It swung open eventually without her being visible from outside. Instead she was leaning against the wall behind the door in the spacious lobby of the appartment. He had expected what he saw, still, it took him a moment to process an evaluation of what must have happened between her and the mysterious client.  
He took hold of her arm without another word, making her sit down at the dining table in the middle of the huge living room and turned her face to take a closer look in the light. She hissed as he touched her bruised lip.

"Any headache?" he finally asked, kneeling in front of her trying to see her pupils.

"I don't think so."

"Yes! Or! No?" he turned her head with both hands grasping her jaw trying to check for any blockades when moving. "You need to see someone, no matter what!" he barked at her as blood from her nose began running down his fingers.

"Really, I can't they will ask questions and..."

"Do I know that piece of shit?" his voice was toppling now both from panic and anger about feeling so absolutely useless. As she refused to talk to him, he picked her up and carried her towards the bathroom.

 

It took a while to convince her to leave the hotel. She had almost no weight at all when he took her by her arm and helped her into the passenger seat. As he carefully closed her door he picked up on a face slightly familiar on one of the balconies on the first floor. Clara was on her phone, smoking. He turned away, fearing to see Greg appear out of nothing at it was so often his habit. The man whose shadow went along the wall in the room behind her by no means could have belonged to the detective. Too tall, wrong movements, too sleak. Mycroft sighed as his determination not to know and not to get involved melted away. As he opened the door on the driver's side, he saw him, a man most definetly not Greg resting hsi hand leisurely on Clara's shoulder. He swallowed hard when he believed Clara's eye to make contact and quickly got into the car. The whole episode could not have lasted for longer than a minute. Nevertheless his hands were shaking as he slowly steered the car onto the street.

 

"Mr Smith?" the young doctor on duty pronounced the name in a way that left no question about how dubious she had found his report of events.

"Yes, how is she?" he got up quickly, eager to leave the crammed waiting area.

"Your...sister is fine. We would have liked her to spend the night here but she refuses. Are you sure you are able to look after her?"

"Yes, don't worry."

"And Mr. Smith. As you claimed she was attacked in the street, I must insist you fill in a form for the police so they can start invesitgating. It is not very often we see these kind of injuries in crime victims, more common in cases of domestic violence. But since you insist you don't know the attacker..." she looked at Mycroft with raised eyebrows in a last attempt to get to the bottom of this but sighed eventually, handing him Irene's papers and ripped shirt.

 

"You're going to carry me over threshold?" Irene laughed between coughs as he picked her up to help her up the few steps towards his door. Lewis opened it from inside, trying hard to maintain her uninvolved facade.

"That'll be all for today. Thank you." He waved at her, Irene leaning on his shoulder in order to slowly climb the stairs.

"I don't have a guestroom at the moment. I hope you don't mind the clutter." He stooped open the door to Leo's room, switching on the lights with his free hand. It took a while for the lightbulb to come up to its full power. He carfully lowered Irene on the small bed she ran one of her hands over the green duvet covers. The wall above the bed was covered in pictures of the three of them.

"I never knew." she smiled, taking a closer look at a picture of Leo and Lissi on his parents' patio.

"Yes, well. It's not like we have been in much contact recently." Mycroft got on his knees and helped her out of her shoes. "My...uhm father gave him a camera some time ago and he has been quite dedicated since. He talks about being a journalist. A folly I hope he will outgrow at some point." He struggled with her left shoe that then came off too fast, sheking his balance slightly. She watched with amazement as a slight blush went over his face that was turned towards her only partly as he spoke about the boy. She could see the moment he realized that he had talked much more than he had intended to. His features straightened up quiklsy. When he got up he stood in the middle of the room for a while, turning once or twice without knowing how to go on.

"I will be downstairs. I uhm. Work." He fussed with some of the books that were lying all over the place. She nodded trying to catch his eyes.

"Myc? Thank you." There was a sigh in response that sounded a little of relief. Pressing her mobile into her hand, he finally managed to close the door behind himself.

She woke early in the morning from the unfamiliar sounds of the house. It took her a while to put the toy airplanes above her head into the right context. There was muffled rattle of work in the kitchen from downstairs, then the smell of freshly brewed tea. The room looked out onto the porch whose white pebbles were glazed by the drizzle. Someone had draped a green dressing gown over the back of the chair by the small desk, the same colour he would have worn all those years back.

"Good morning, or so I hope." Mycroft wouldn't look up from the the cups he was filling with hot water. Already dressed in the usual manner, she couldn't help but smirk at the way he went around the kitchen.

"Yes, I feel considerably better." She took up one of the cups and seated herself in one of the chairs by the kitchen table. Mycroft piled several piece of toast on her plate before picking up his own cup.

"I...normally someone is here but I didn't know...I sent her home."

"You wouldn't have needed for my sake." she smiled when she noticed it hadn't been for her sake. "You live here alone then? I mean apart from..."

He cleared his throat, somehow unable to loosen his eyes completely from the paper folded neatly next to his empty plate. "Yes."

She blew into her mug waiting for the brew to cool down enough to be consumed. The silence stretched as he turned the pages.

"Is...does this happen occasionally?" His eyes gave her face a swift all over but caught on the cut in the corner of her lips.

"No. And I don't mean to let it happen again."

"Ah."

"You haven't changed at all, you know." she bit into one of the pieces of toast, the crumbs flying all the way across onto his papers. His hand collected them absentmindedly while he studied her once more. "I can tell from the careful way you speak that you have already come up with a plan to save me and make it all well."

"Is that so?"

"It is indeed, Mr Holmes." she stretched one hand over the table towards him, touching his fingertips with hers. His eyes followed her movement, lingering on the surface of her polished nails. "But I don't need saving, or maybe I do but don't want to be saved. Not in the way you have imagined." she whispered, taking in the cold that was streaming from his pale hands. There was a visible pulse drumming from within the web of blue veins running over the back of his hand. 

"You could have been so much more. It just seems such a waste." he talked to her nails, having forgotten she was actually there not a conversation he was having in his mind.

"I am not a damsel in distress and though I thank you for helping me last night, I don't need saving." His phone rang from within his jacket but neither his hand nor his eyes moved. "Your phone darling." she said eventually, hoping to break the spell.

"Yes." he stated in a flat voice, holding his stare a little longer. When he pickedi t up eventually, he vanished towards his study, closing the dorr quietly but with determination.

He watched her curled up on the small bed in superficial slumber through the crack of the half opened door until she stirred. Becoming aware of how strange he would look if she woke and saw him, he knocked slightly and stepped in, holding the tray with lunch out to her as a sufficient excuse for his intrusion. She smiled her usual, captivating smile and he tried his best to return it, drawing the chair from the desk close to watch her eat.

"Your clients...can I ask you something?"

She remembered the night he had come to see her and nodded with hesitation.

"Are...I mean some of them are married right?"

"Yes? This is not you giving me a moral dressing-down, is it? There is no point in guilt-tripping me."

Something about his shoes seemed rather fascinating, he kept their tip under close inspection. " Let's assume you were in their wive's place, would you like to know? Or would you rather be left in the dark about your patner's other engagements?"

"Those that choose to know, know anyhow. It's nothing you can fail to notice unless you choose to."

He ran two hands along his jaw where a hint of red stubble began to appear, deeply lost in thought.

"Why?" she asked carefully, trying once more to make eye contact. He had never seemed so young before.

"Curiosity."

He went out to pick up Lissi who talked like a waterfall on the entire way back about the guinea pig she had seen in the garden of his mother's neighbours. He listened with one ear, holding her hand on the entire trip back. As they entered the kitchen, the dressing gown was neatly folded over the chair she had been sitting in, the cups had been cleaned and left to dry upside down on his sink. He didn't need to check upstairs to know she was gone.


	70. Extraordinary Events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's basically it. This is the final chapter. However, I feel more than just hesitant to part with the story so I have begun to write the first part of a supplement story on the journey mentioned by Mycroft he and Sherlock went on with their father. Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to comment, this really made the writing so very enjoyable.

It wasn't often that her sons called her. So she believed to smell hospital disinfectant when Sherlock's number appeared on the little screen. She put down the tray of fresh cake on the kitchen table, wiped her hands on the checkered kitchen towel before reaching for the handset. Bernhard stood in front of the window, inspecting some new rose bushes with a neighbour.

"Son?" Insitinct kicked in, she analysed this split second of silence, the way he breathed for clues about what will follow it.

"No, I'm fine, I'm on my way home." He was walking. She could hear his steps, the sound of London's streets in the background.

"How was your day?"

"Good." No frown, no annoyance, no lie. She swallowed, she was not concerned but confused.

"Oh?"

"I...uhm." Sherlock stuttered, a car was sounding its horn. He hissed, the walking stopped. "I found a flatmate."

"Really? How very nice! I'm so glad to hear it Sherli." her voice sounded more shrilling than she would have liked it to. Too much pressure evaporating at once. " Who is it? Not someone you contacted on the internet? I heard about that, Mrs Miller's daughter tried it, she is not the most attractive you know that and then there was this man and she didn't like him but he would turn up again and again, even at her workplace..." She stopped herself as she noticed she was rambling, stealed herself against being told off for being annoying.

"No, John is a doctor." As if that was an explanation for everything, would be enough information to appease her racing mind. "He uhm. At the morgue. He looked at the flat just now, went to get his belongings. John. His name is John."

"John."

"Yes, John. John Watson."

"Well, I am happy to hear it. I'm happy you found someone. To live with, I mean."

"Yes." He sounded small, or younger maybe than he had ever before. She smiled as she realized, licking some icing sugar from one of the cakes to surpress a giggle of pure joy.

"Better go now. John said I... we need to clean up a bit."

"Yes, do that, Sherli, and call me, some time, soon?"

"I just called. Are you never to be satisfied? There is more important things that need my attention, than your need for pointless chatter." He apparently had reached the door, he could hear Mrs Hudson in the background and interpreted his brusque brush off accordingly.

 

"Who is that?" Anthea was leaning over the back of his chair to get a better look at the screen. The blonde man in a jumper that looked like it was knitted by some friendly granny was trying to find a spot in Sherlock's cluttered flat to put down one of the few boxes filled with his own bits and pieces. His brothers was standing in the middle of the room, being absolutely useless. Mycroft was surpressing the need to yell at Sherlock on the screen. Tell him to not be so very much himself for once.

"My brother's new flatmate. John Hamish Watson. Ex-army doctor, recently returned and injured from Afghanistan. Reliable, friendly, loyal, simple in mind. In desperate need for an object for his helper's complex.The ideal combination." He drummed his hand on the lid of a file that bore the man's name in bold letters, beaming a smile at Anthea.

"The answer to your prayers, then. Or...did you intervene in this?" Mycrofts kept grinning, pretending not to have heard. She knew better than to insist, shook her head a little at the glee in the man's face as he watched his brother pacing behind the man, talking relentlessly.

 

Molly kept her distance when the door swung open with the characteristic force. Sherlock paraded in, his coat intensifying the dramatic effect towards the ridiculous. It half hid the smaller man behind who tried his best to keep up, hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. He tried to catch Sherlock's eyes several times as they hurried from one side of the room to the other. Neither took an notice of her.

"But how do you know that?" The man looked on with flushed cheeks as Sherlock prepared slides with something that looked like dirt.

"It's obvious John! Don't you see?" The curls already crouched over the microscope.

"To you." John shrugged, scanning the room. Molly waited for the usual shower of insults to be dumped over Sherlock's audience but nothing of the sort happened. Instead Sherlock looked up, his eyes resting on John's face, moving away before their eyes were likely to meet.

"Look at it." Sherlock moved away from the microscope, John hurried to take his place.

"See?"

"Yes. Yes, you're probably right."

"Probably?" Sherlock huffed, running a hand through his hair, his eyes never leaving John's face.

"Oh, yes. I know. Yes, Sherlock you are right." John rolled his eyes but smiled nevertheless. Sherlock nodded determined and satisfied, his best arrogant expression firmly in place. It was the soft smile which followed as soon as he lead John towards the door again that surprised her and unsettled her deeply.

 

It was seldom that her sons called her. Even more seldom for them both calling the same day. Sign of extraordniary things to be going on. So she smiled when Mycroft's number appeared on the little screen. She put down a cup of tea in front of Bernhard who looked up at her form his paper and returned the smile. She rested her hand on his shoulder as she put him on speaker. 

"Son."

"You heard?"

"He called."

"Ah." they let the silence speak for a while over the cracks in the line.

"Heard what?" Bernhard enquired, frowning at the phone, misinterpreting the breakdown of talk.

"Sherlock has fallen in love." she muttered as she pressed his shoulder and he looked at her, puzzled.

"What's her name?"

"John. John Watson." She and Mycroft say unisono, a relieved sigh and smile on each side of the line.


End file.
